A Tree for All Seasons

In a December post, I mentioned that we bought a new artificial Christmas tree (Martha Stewart brand, actually, with berries and pine cones and fake snow, permanently stuck into a plastic pot). It came pre-lit (a single string of, oh, maybe fifty white lights) to which I added two strings of multi-colored lights and a few ornaments at Christmas.

Now here it is, mid-January, and the decorations and lights have come down... but I could not bear to make everything go away. Plus a magazine article I read had photos of a "sweetheart tree" someone made for a St. Valentine's Day party. So I decided to redecorate our tree for every damn holiday I can think of and, since the tree sits in front of a window, I can share it with our next-door neighbor and anyone who happens to drive by our house. (Awwww - how sweet!)

Back when we had two craft stores in town (Joann's Fabrics and Frank's, both long gone) I would stop in after Christmas and buy strings of lights - green, red, green and red, green and blue, amber, teal, pink, amber/teal/pink, etc. - at ridiculously low prices. I have a few left from those days that still work (some still in their boxes), so after I took off the multi-colored lights I put on a string of pink and added a few small ornaments to create... a pink & white St. Valentine's Day tree. And I plan to change it to white, green and orange (the colors of the Irish flag) for St. Patrick's Day; then something pastel for Easter and eventually red, white and blue (or pink, white and teal)... and on and on, ad nauseum! It's a little tree so it isn't a lot of work (not like it used to be, with the six-foot tree we used to have) and it will cheer me up to see the lights at night.

To quote Ebeneezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" : "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." 

Bah, humbug indeed!