Christmas Freak

The merriest corner of the Internet

Tag: Christmas tree

Multicolored Lights vs. White Lights

Allow me to metaphorically sneeze on your powdered sugar and enter the long and storied debate that has divided households, fostered strife among communities, and spurred acts of rebellion and protest, by offering my humble opinion: I think you should consider multicolored Christmas lights.

This is not to say that I don’t like your elegant white string lights or your matching silver garland or your symmetrically hung silver ornaments or your silver reindeer candle holder or your silver napkin holders and immaculate porcelain table settings etched with doves—on the contrary, I would call the aforementioned items year-round décor. But only once a year is it socially acceptable to saw down a tree, bring it inside your house and cover it with shiny things, so why not include a little color and allow yourself the possibility of stumbling across your tree in the middle of the night while getting a glass of milk and being stunned by the beauty of its lights twinkling in a dark room the way I imagine the stars do above the north pole at Christmas, multicolored and unabashedly bright, speckling the ceiling with iridescent gumdrops.

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A Humble Rosemary Plant

Or rather, a small edible pine tree that smells of roasting chicken.

The Back of the Tree

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This is a divisive subject, one that might ruffle some partridge feathers, but I’ll just come out with it because here at Christmas Freak we don’t shy away from the tough issues: Does it really need to be decorated? I think of it as the tree’s built-in spare room, existing solely for excess tinsel storage. If I’m feeling particularly sentimental, I’ll hang a sad, bottom-of-the-box ornament on a rear branch, but I otherwise concentrate my efforts on the front of the tree because this is the 21st century and I’m too busy Google street viewing the North Pole to worry myself with formalities.

Urban Tree Toppers

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In the decade plus that I lived in New York, I don’t think I ever saw a star. I was too busy peering into other people windows, checking out their furniture. Besides, most city dwellers know that a distant airplane can look just as pretty as a star, and that the lit up windows of a skyscraper can look just as lovely as a constellation. So when I was looking for a tree-topper, a star just felt . . . unnatural. If you live in New York and feel like personalizing your tree, may I suggest topping it with a homemade water tower? Mine also ended up looking kind of like a rocket ship; I like that it’s up for interpretation. Below are a few more ideas:

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Clockwise from the top left is a cloud of fog for San Francisco. Which can also be used as smog for LA. The O is obviously for Chicago. Oprah! And then a burning Red Sox car for Boston. Sorry if I didn’t name your city. I need to travel more, and plane tickets always seem too complicated to put on a Christmas list.

Heavy Ornaments

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(dramatic rendering)

Why do they exist? The above ornament weighs more than my cat. The only branch that can sustain its weight is a stubby one deep in the middle, so densely covered in pine that I can only see the ornament when I bend down to water the tree. So unfestive! Also, I really think its weight has set my tree slightly askew (though I suppose that could also be the product of an uncalibrated tree holder). The paranoid part of me wonders if this is a scheme devised by ornament fabricators to trick us into buying a second heavy ornament to balance the tree on the other side. A Christmas Conspiracy! One so insidious, so pervasive that it can be traced up to the executive branch of the government! One so terrible that once it’s revealed we’ll have to hold a second, even better Christmas to make up for the first. Lightweight ornaments for all, pine needles scattered across the streets like confetti, 2.5 Christmas trees for every household . . . ! End fantasy.

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