Tree of Christmas Past.........

It's slightly too early for the Christmas decorations to make their appearance at Le Beau Paon, but when I looked at the calender and saw how fast it's coming up, I realized that it won't be long before I'll be making the trek up the attic to get all my Christmas stuff down!

I'm one of those folks who won't put up a Christmas tree, decorations or outdoor lights before Thanksgiving,  mostly for fear of being set upon by a lynch mob of traditionalists who consider pre-Thanksgiving Christmas decorations to be an evil that should not be tolerated. I'm sort of one of those people myself; I think each holiday should be given it's due.

However, I thought I'd cheat a little and show a few pictures of a Tree from Christmas Past; that is...... one of my Christmas trees from last year, 2009.

This small, slender fake tree was the tree I used for many years when I was single and before I owned a house and I lived in small, one-bedroom apartments. It was perfect for the apartment dweller; only 5 feet tall, it was also extra skinny and was marketed specifically to people like me, who had limited space, but still wanted to have a Christmas tree. It came apart in three sections and could be folded into a bag about the size of a large duffel. Our first Christmas at Le Beau Paon, we put up my little tree (which was crammed with so many Victorian ornaments that you could barely see the branches.) And then we laughed and laughed.
It was so tiny looking in our big parlour, with it's 10 and a half foot ceilings. It looked rather ridiculous.
The following Christmas, Erik persuaded me to buy a new fake tree; a pre-lighted 10 foot monster that takes two people to carry. My little tree sat in a box in the attic and gathered dust for two years.

Above: the little tree in the parlour ( with only about half of the ornaments I own on it) our first Christmas at Le Beau Paon in 2006.

I felt sad for my little tree and then got an idea; why not have two Christmas trees?  I could have my big Victorian tree in the parlour as usual, but then I could do a "theme" tree and set it up in a different room. I could do a specific color scheme, or motif and I could change it every year. And I would buy the next year's decorations after each holiday when all the Christmas stuff was on sale for 80% off, so it wouldn't be expensive at all to do.

And so, here again, was 2009's theme tree; I used a variety of ornaments, but I used a specific color scheme; gold, copper, bronze and lime green. I purchased all the ornaments at after-holiday sales for 70-80% off and was able to buy more than enough ornaments and garland for this tree spending only about $28.00.

After Christmas last year, I hit the stores and bought ornaments for this year's theme tree, which will be going up after Thanksgiving, so you'll have to wait until then to see the theme tree for 2010.

Here it is all lit up (with the lighted garland that I made for the stair rail).

I'll leave you with this pretty picture I took of the Victorian tree in the parlour from last year..........

See you soon!
Thanks for stopping by!