It seems every year without fail, my tree and I have decorating issues. It’s not the tree’s fault (although this year our tree had a little problem I’ll mention later). My overzealous search for the perfect combination of texture and color in the tree decorations that are right for both night and day viewing is undeniably over-achievement 101. And when I then change the tree theme slightly from last year, I’m inevitably in trouble.
Again, I forgot that the tree’s daytime ‘look’ is very different from the nighttime ‘look’. I made this mistake last year too. I had it decked out in gold, white, and/or green and then night fell and the tree disappeared. Because the only element that translates at nighttime on a tree lit with a thousand twinkling lights ( seven strands of 150’s), is the color Red. And not just a little here and there. You need a lot of Red.
This year I envisioned a more natural tree theme. I decided to go with white, light green, brown, and red. I started with a light gold ribbon as a base to diffuse some light. I added a wide green ribbon to this. Then an orangey red ribbon cascading down with sheer red bows everywhere. Nighttime came and, surprise, it needed something. If you guessed more Red, you would be right. The tree decorating then stalled until yesterday.
My husband and I decided to do the round-up shop together. That’s the shop for the last bits and pieces to fill in the gift gaps and obtain “the stuffers” kinda shop. I broke the rules by shopping without a list and used the forbidden credit card (just this once) to get my creative juices flowing. And there was the answer to the 2011 tree dilemma, red tinsel garland. From previous years, I’ve procured orange and magenta garland, but not red. And it was the perfect dark red to compliment the orangey ribbons.
Last night I festooned the tree with the 45 feet of my new Red garland and added more brown paper flowers. I put the last of the ornaments on and saved a few special ones for the son to put on tonight. I thought it generous of me to let him touch my tree. It looks fabulous and you know, now that he’s seen it, my husband said I was rrr…right about the necessity of the Red garland. You don’t even notice the lean of the tree because I wedged it against the ceiling with the stub from where we had to cut it off to fit the ceiling height. Now all’s right with my world and Christmas can progress.
