Monday, December 26, 2011

O Christmas Stick, O Christmas Stick...

We had a mishap with the fake tree. After 20 solid years of faithfully putting that same tree up, we decided to store it in the garage last year to free up some space in the loft.

Imagine our surprise when we picked up the box to carry it in the house and a family of mice sprang forth from between the box flaps. With visions of nests and pee and poo everywhere, we did not even open the box to check the damage. I still can't bring myself to look.

Now what were we going to do for a Christmas tree?

I've spent way too much time on Pinterest lately pinning one craft idea after another. It shows in the way I've started to think.

No way was I going to shell out $20 to Walmart for a dead tree I'd just be throwing out next week.

I looked around me while I stood there beside the old tree which had become Mouse Motel, and looked about the property for a likely substitute.

I spied some fallen branches from the oaks we have all around us and a seed was planted in my brain.

♫ 3 Sticks from oak trees
2 Strings of Lights
and a new tra-dition is born. ♫


I sprayed the sticks metallic silver (thinking it was gold like the cap of the spray can).
Carefully draped 2 strings of lights, then placed sections of cut garland around and added silk wrapped Styrofoam Christmas balls and the new celebratory decorative object was born.

Total cost: $2 for the can of spray paint. The rest of the stuff we already had.

This falls short of a traditional tree, yet shows more effort than say a Festivus Pole.


Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas  Festivus  holiday!

I'm seriously thinking of doing this for every holiday. Next up? The Valentine Stick. {thanks for the idea, Cindy!}



2 comments:

  1. Yes, yes a Valentine tree full of love. The "stick" idea is great for every holiday or left out all year and decorated seasonally. I have wanted one for awhile, just haven't come across the perfect stick yet and I refuse to buy one from the craft store.

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  2. Heh. I wasn't too picky. Just picked up some fallen branches from the yard. Then I stripped off the smaller stuff, leaving the main stick with some branches here and there. If I had it to do over (which I will with the Valentine Stick) I would cut a fresh branch so as to avoid brittleness and possible breakage so I can hang more than styrofoam balls or paper decorations (not that there's anything wrong with that). :P

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