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Health & Fitness

The Traditional Untraditional Christmas Tree

Every family has their traditions. Ours does too. Here is a story of our tradition of decorating untraditional trees.

As a teacher I have received many ornaments to don my Christmas tree: apples, miniature desks, photos, “greatest teacher” and more. Some of them have been store-bought and some hand-made.

As a mom I’ve purchased many ornaments over the years for my own three children. I’ve written the year it was given to them with a black Sharpie pen along with each child’s initials. The idea being that when they moved out on their own they would have an assortment of ornaments for their own Christmas tree.

Our typical traditional tree usually had white lights, homemade popcorn garlands, multi-colored beaded garlands, silver tin icicles, and a vast array of colorful non-matching ornaments. The ones from my students, the ones I’ve purchased or have received from family members and all the ones that Santa stuffed very specifically into the stockings of Morgan, Troy and Shelby. They have been displayed oh-so-carefully on a very symmetrical, very large live pine tree. I’ve adorned the bottom of the tree with an antique quilt, a wagon, dolls, and a teddy bear. The tree was sometimes placed in an ancient enormous ceramic crock. They were always beautiful.

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One year I kept the traditional tree in the family room and decided to decorate another smaller tree. On that tree I also had popcorn garland and white lights but I also added many pairs of tiny shoes from when my children were babies and toddlers. I tied them together with raffia and hung them throughout the branches. I added their tiny silver baby spoons. Next came a silver baby cup. I added their first baby photos in silver frames. It was a sweet eye-catching “baby” tree.

Another year my youngest daughter Shelby and I went to our school district’s Christmas tree lot. We looked at all of the traditional trees but kept circling back to one fat chubby tree that was about two feet tall. We looked at one another with smiling faces.

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“How about this one Mom?” Shelby joked.

“Nobody will want it,” I said to Shelby. “I kinda feel sorry for it.”

We looked at one another, giggled, and later found ourselves unpacking the chubby tree into our home.

That year it was a more elegant themed tree: silver and mercury glass ornaments, both tin and glass beaded garlands with snowflake shapes and white paper star ornaments from my sister and her husband’s store. The tree was placed upon an old weathered side table with a smaller white quilt adorning the bottom of it. It was small but stunning.

The next year we looked for something different. This time it was a tree that looked like something from a Dr. Seuss book. It was a Hawaiian fern of some sort I believe. I have to admit, Shelby may have been the one to come up with the car freshener idea, I’m not really sure. I do know I loved the idea while walking through Target earlier that day. We bought TONS of red and green pine-tree-shaped automobile air fresheners to use.

When home we decided to add our outdoor white light bulbs, they were much bigger than our standard bulbs. Next came a giant red ice bucket for the tree to be placed inside. The finishing touches were red and green pine-tree-shaped automobile air fresheners. It looked rather retro. “Mom, that looks so cool!” Shelby exclaimed. And because our tree was not our typical pine tree we were happy to have the scent created by the car fresheners.  It was magical looking in a unique, creative science fiction kind of way. I captured it by taking a photo.

All was well in the world of Christmas trees in our household. That is, until about 3am that particular holiday season.

That is because at about 3am I awoke nauseous and feeling like I was about to get sick. I was queasy. I got up and realized obnoxious pine-y smell was permeating throughout my entire home. ICK!

I headed downstairs to where our retro tree was located. The smell downstairs was so strong I was gagging. I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. I plucked each and every one of those scented car fresheners, choking back the urge to get sick. I ran down another flight of stairs and threw the now zipped Ziploc bag into the garage. I ran back up and proceeded to open up all of the windows to let in fresh air. I turned the ceiling fan on high. It was particularly cold that night but I did not care. Cold and clean air was superior to warm and toxic.

This year?

My home was “holiday ready” shortly after Thanksgiving this year. I had placed live topiaries, small pine trees and white poinsettias mixed with various Santas and antique watering cans and candles throughout my home and front porch. It definitely looks like a chick’s pad but somehow it all just works.

I look around and it makes me happy inside.

My tree? 

I haven’t bought it yet. 

I do know this fact; it is bound to be a traditional, untraditional Christmas tree.

And this: it most definitely won’t smell like pine-tree-shaped automobile air fresheners.

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