Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Single Girl's Christmas Tree

It's hard to believe I used to LOVE Christmas. It's even harder to believe I have an attic chock-full of Christmas ornaments, Department 56 Christmas Villages, piles of wrapping paper... Santa could start a Southern North Pole with my attic contents alone!

Over the years, it just started to seem like so much WORK. My godchildren are grown. And most years, I'm traveling and it feels so anticlimactic to have to come home and put it all away. There's a million other things I'd rather do than unpack and pack decorations.

Still, I like to have some ode to the season somewhere. Usually it's a cypress knee painted like Santa. In 2001, my last season on The Carol Duvall Show, I had finally convinced the field producer to film in Louisiana. One of the artists I found there painted the cypress knee Santas and when we taped the studio wrap around, I was so struck by how beautiful they were in person. I ordered one. It was late September and I requested that Santa be cloaked in red, white & blue and dated. Now, all these years and wars later... he makes me kind of sad.

So, when I saw this tiny table top (er...tv top) tree at Big Lots for the oh-so-budget-friendly price of $10 (and it was PURPLE!), I had to treat myself.

5 comments:

Linda@VS said...

With apologies to Gelett Burgess for the following abuse of his poem:

"I never saw a purple tree;
I never thought I'd see one,
but I can tell you anyhow,
I'd rather..." have a perfectly delightful purple tree than drag out the lights and ornaments and the rest of the shiny stuff only to have to put it away again a few weeks later. It's been at least 10 years (maybe longer) since I've put up a big Christmas tree. A couple of years ago I found a fake one that's about 18" high, already decorated with tiny red satin balls. I set it out for Christmas, then return it to the plastic bag in which it resides in the top of a closet until the next year. That's all the Christmas spirit I need.

Anonymous said...

*gasp* I am SO jealous of your purple tree!! Really! I wish I could get one. But Mom has her tackiness limits, and we'll have to content ourselves with The World's Tackiest Christmas Wreath on the door, and the Silver Sequin Cone that's supposed to be a Xmas decoration.

CreekHiker / HollysFolly said...

Janet, you could always put it in your room... it's not as garish in person.. Just a tinsel tree. But that plastic pot is godawful!

Anonymous said...

Gawd, I wouldn't put it in my room! Begone, Satan! It's bad enough there's Christmas crap in the bathroom, I want my room to be Xmas-free!

Anonymous said...

I still love that tree!