Well, you can't drive five miles around here without passing a U-cut christmas tree farm, so we'd be darned peculiar if we got an artificial tree ;~D We get Noble firs here for stronger branches, some of the other kinds have wimpier branches.
But we aren't gonna put up a tree here at all, since we'll be at the beach house Christmas day anyhow, so I just put lights on our big house plants to add some cheer.
I'm tryin' something new tho this year. Not putting on the garland/beads. Maybe the tree won't look so overdressed.
Also got the mantle done. Sort of by accident we started a Santa collection a few years back. This year I spread it on over to the cabinet the TV is on.
But this year we also added our favorite. It's hard to describe...but...(when has that stopped me before).
For years (literally 20 or so) this gentleman at our church played the lead in our productions. He was always the Apostle Peter at Easter and Santa (and various other characters) at Christmas. A few years back, when we did our Richmond in the 40s show he was a police officer (if you followed the plot he was also an angel). I was actually his understudy for that show. He died a couple of years ago (he was only in his 50s).
Anyway this year I found the perfect Santa. It's a police officer Santa. But the amazing thing was, I saw it in the store and just stared at it. It was if they had used Bill as a model. It has a place of honor on the mantle.
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Duh.
We used our big umbrella plant for our only Christmas in Indiana. We were going down to MS for Christmas, so we didn't bother with a tree. I did sew some soft felt ornaments to hang on it, though, cause Paul had started walking that October, and I knew he'd probably toddle over and grab a couple of them. For years I put the soft ornaments on the bottom and my breakable ones higher up. Still do it, out of habit I guess, but we'll be ready when the grandkids start toddling over and yanking the tree!