We made a dramatic change and it felt wonderful.
For years and years our Christmas Tree has been much the same. It was covered with animals and toys and objects which were designed to capture the attention and imagination of our grandchildren. It was covered with beads and sparkly things. There were alligators made out of sequins and glass dolphins. There were spacemen and dancing flamingoes.
There came a moment when we said to ourselves “what would happen if we put up a different sort of tree?”
We bought a new tree and gave the old one to our daughter.
She was very happy and we were happy that she was happy and I had something in mind.
Our trees had never had anything to do with color or style but this year I had an idea.
I began prowling the thrift stores for ornaments of all sizes in brown, bronze, gold and silver.
I found many. I bought them.
I found beautiful, breakable animals in forest colors at Hobby Lobby. I realized when I bought them that I had not given up the idea of decorating a tree to appeal to children. This tree is decorated with fewer ornaments than trees in the past but the animals are prominent. The lights are attached to the tree and are in two sizes. They provide a beautiful, winter forest look to the flocked branches and the branches are very, heavily flocked.
Yesterday, we took down the tree.
We took the tree apart and put it into its box.
We wrapped the breakable ornaments in paper towels.
We brushed the flocking from our clothing.
We swept and vacuumed the hardwood floor and the rug.
We carried the boxes to the basement.
Our home looks very bare.
After-Christmas Bare is a very loud kind of bare but it is nice.
It is the end of the Christmas Season of 2020.
