Beads and Baubles

I finally got the big tree put up. Of course "big" is a relative term in our house. We have a living room so tiny a tree barely fits and I was tripping over my husband all afternoon Saturday while I decorated it.

It would seem that over the last couple years I've accumulated quite a few purple ornaments. And I put every last one of them, plus some gold ones on the tree. Decided not to put anything on there but the purple and gold balls and I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Of course that means I have a huge box full of icicles, and gold and white themed ornaments.

The tree itself has a little story. My dear step-daughter wanted a Christmas tree. Her father, being the less than enthusiastic Christmas sort of person (ok, let's be honest and call him the Grinch) bought the cheapest artificial tree he could find.

A year later when I came on the scene, I said, "Next year we're getting a nicer tree."

And next year we had the same old tree because I couldn't afford a nicer one. And the next year I was unemployed and so on..........

So, last year as I dragged out the scraggly little thing

again. I decided, it's got too many memories now to

get rid of it. I just challenge myself to fluff and assemble

and decorate the puny little thing so you don't realize

how sad the tree is. It's sort of like Charlie Brown's

Christmas tree.

And it's been very fun accumulating those purple

and lavender decorations. Some of them came from

the thrift store I always shop at. The clear lavender

ones were an after Christmas clearence when I was

shopping with my daughter. And this fall, that same kid

who wanted the tree in the first place mailed me a

package that contained a dozen great big ornaments

all in shades of lavender and purple.