Red and Green

On Monday I woke up to a whisper in my ear. "Why can't we have a Christmas tree with Christmas colors? LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?" But I wasn't quite awake, so I didn't answer. The whisperer repeated herself. In my foggy head I wondered what other Christmas trees she had seen? 

"Robs" I said, "It's too early to talk about Christmas Trees." She gave me one minute.

"Mom" she said, "I don't like that we have only one color on our tree. I want Christmas colors: RED and GREEN. Like we've always done." 

But it was still too early, and I really didn't know what to say. We have never done red and green. In fact, we've never rrrrreally done a Christmas tree. A couple years ago I found one for fifteen dollars- a tall spindly little thing. And for a couple years I've decorated it with two strings of white lights, all kinds of handmade garlands and paper ornaments. At one point I got fancy and added twine. I bunched a sheet around the bottom and called it a tree skirt, and then sat back to admire my work. We've never gone fancy. 

But this year, my mom had an extra tree that was one ounce fancier than our previous tree. I didn't even have to string the lights. And since we have a house, I thought: we'll have a tree. I bought glittery bulbs, glittery branches, orange/red mesh-something-or-other, assorted ornaments... the works, especially when compared to paper.

But Robs didn't like it- and truthfully I didn't either. Our homespun ways have kind of grown on me. So Tuesday night after the pirates were sound asleep, I took everything off- and put it all on the spindly little tree. It looks great in our front room. For our family tree, I went back to homespun: burlap, red beads, a paper garland, and just a few ornaments. I love it. 

Robs' favorite part is the white paper garland.