Christmas is the time of year when my slight (I hope) OCD tendencies brim to the surface. I have appointed myself the Good Taste Christmas Lights Enforcer. Too many houses are falling victim to the Christmas rush and being slapped together with no thought. At least, I hope that's what happened.This year I have devised:
I will update you on this year's best and worst - feel free to submit photos for scoring.
I realise that I sound quite mean. I'm sorry. I can't help it. I blame my childhood Christmas tree.
Once upon a time there was a small girl who was mesmerised by Christmas. She would eagerly anticipate the day mum said she and her sisters could put up the Christmas tree and would then spend ages gazing adoringly at it while listening to our record of Christmas carols (it had pop up things in the album cover) and dreaming of what Santa would bring. It was magical. One year, however, the scales fell from her eyes and she saw the tree for what it really was. It was a fake tree handed down to her parents from her grandparents and thoroughly showing its age. She noticed that it was, essentially, a big stick with some holes in it that you could poke some branches into. She noticed that the branches were so sparse you could clearly see the big stick in the middle and that they stuck out at odd angles. The top of the tree was a branch that stuck straight up so that the poor old angel who lived on top of the tree, and who was once an object of wonder but was now losing her tinsel hair, could only flop listlessly to one side. The poor branch couldn't hold her up. In fact, her tree looked a little something like this:
(I only worry that I've made the tree look too nice.)
It was about this time that the little girl started to notice that when she went to visit friends that their trees were filled out and were beautifully decorated (and not with the homemade Styrofoam bells from Sunday School) and that their houses actually had other decorations. Not just some tinsel and paper chains, but lights and ornaments. She returned home and looked forlornly at her tree again. She determined that once she was in charge of her own Christmas that she would make it beautiful - OR ELSE!
Her first attempt was to enforce a colour theme on her family at the age of 17. She spent ages making little red velvet bows with gold trim so they would have enough red decorations - even though she is hopeless at craft. It was a slight improvement.
Her next effort was once she lived with her husband (who comes from a real tree family) and could finally glory in having her first ever REAL CHRISTMAS TREE. Only to discover that in Australia they wilt, go brown, lean, have limp branches and drop needles that the cat eats and then throws up.
Finally, she dragged her husband around the shops until she found the 'perfect' fake tree (within moderate budget limits) and managed to extract a promise from him that each year she could splurge on one nice new Christmas item.
It's just about decorating time. Good luck people. May the gods of good taste be with us all.
EDIT: I really did make the tree look too nice. My husband agreed. He suggested I draw a frowny face over the top, but I think I need to do another one.
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