Oh nnenbaum(s) (alternatively, a tale of five Christmas trees)

vWell, Hans' descent is almost complete; Christmas is almost here! Most morbid Christmas decor, ever? And it’s in my house? In my family room?? Oh my! We did not procure this for ourselves (obviously!!) And it’s funny in an ironic way.

Let’s move on to more festive photos and stories of Christmas decor in the house. Specifically, the stories of the five Christmas trees that we have here in our house. All of the Christmas trees are fake. All are adored (by at least one family member anyway!!) and play a unique role in making the house both merry and bright. Here are their stories:

1. The Christmas Room/ Dining Room tree- I’ve written about this tree recently, so I won’t beleaguer the point. This tree owes its existence in our home to having Christmas china with a Christmas tree motif on it. Also, the room has plenty of room for a tree so why not? It’s neither a large tree nor a lush tree (I paid around $25 for it at Wal-mart) but it’s perfect for the room. The ornaments are fairly uniform, and the colors don’t vary much.

2. Very near the Christmas Room tree is the entry way tree. I love having a tree just inside the front door. This is probably our oldest Christmas tree. I think we got it just a year or two after moving into our house. I wanted a Christmas tree in front of the window in our living room (which we refer to and use as a study but was designated a living room in the building plans) which faces the street. I’ve always really enjoyed the look of a Christmas tree all lit up in front a window. In our first house, the only window that faced the street on the first level was the window to our dining room. The dining room wasn’t big enough for a tree in front of the window. And so, when we moved into a larger home with two decent rooms that had windows that faced the front of the house, I knew I wanted a tree in front of one of the windows. We bought one but when we brought it home... it just didn’t work well in front of the window. We bought a slim tree due to not wanting it to take much space in the room. It was too slim, though, and didn’t look at all what I had envisioned. So, I moved it to the entryway. It can’t be seen from the outside, it’s really near the tree in the Christmas room, it does not have pre lit lights and I lack the patience to add strings of lights uniformly- a fairly long string of issues from a decor standpoint- yet I love it and where it is within the house, and I love the ornaments on it.

Those cords, tho- ugh! When I replace this tree, it will be a pre-lit one!

Love the photo and vintage ornaments

3.Alyssa’s Christmas tree(s). Alyssa has two trees in her room. One is really small, but one is full sized. I love that she loves to decorate her room for Christmas; the Christmas decor in her room is not limited to the trees in her room. She has a Christmas themed duvet cover, garland that lights up around her window, lights on the ground around her bed, Christmas throw pillows on her couch and lots of Christmas bric a brac on her desk and dresser. 

4.A new Christmas tree in the family room!! A super exciting addition to the decor this year. A fairly to very boring family room tree history story- shortly after we moved to this house, we bought a twelve tree pre lit tree for the family room. It was great... until it wasn’t. It took what seemed like hours to set up (perhaps not even one but it sure felt like more) and then light strands started going out. Meanwhile, I had bought a flocked tree for the basement to give that space some holiday cheer. Donnie spends more time in the basement than anyone (I wouldn’t go so far as to say he has a man cave down there since some of what he has is work related but he also has most of his “toys” in the basement so he spends time down there.). The tree down in the basement didn’t, in a Marie Kondo kind of way, bring any joy to him so I decided to get rid of the twelve foot tree in the family room and move the flocked tree to the family room. We had it there for the past two years. I liked it. The kids did not. I mean, they didn’t move out or mutiny or anything over it but they let their feelings about it be known. It was so cheap looking... and tiny compared to the twelve foot one, they complained. It was cheap looking because it... was cheap and it was tiny in comparison to the old one because it was not nearly twelve foot tall.

I was not planning on replacing the tree, but I did (was influenced by the Queen of Beautiful Christmas Decor, Andrea, somewhat impulsively this year. I found this beauty online and ordered it. It came in and it took me maybe two minutes to assemble. The lights all work. The LIGHTS CAN SWITCH VIA REMOTE CONTROL!!! They switch from mutli- colored to white. I’m smitten!!!

5. For the first time EVER(!!!!!), Donnie and I have a Christmas tree in our bedroom. It’s a bah humbug tree. And not just because the tree is the rejected white flocked tree that has made its way from the basement to the family room and now to our room. It’s a bah humbug tree because it is a Dickens’ Christmas Carol themed tree.

All right, another history story but this one is, I think, a little more interesting than the history of the family room tree. Five years ago (I hate to say this because it’s so cliche, but I cannot believe it’s been five years...), Abby was a sophomore in high school. The fall play that the school performed was A Christmas Carol. Abby had been in the school play her freshman year and got a part with a few lines but not many. She was hoping to get a bigger part her sophomore year. Oh, she did all right in A Christmas Story! 

The play was meant to have multiple people playing the role of Scrooge (I guess to spread the lead role out?). Abby played the role of the second Scrooge to appear on stage and she had other roles as well (the high school has a lot of students in it but the number of students willing and able to act on stage was not tremendously high,🤔 lol). Abby played the role as a charwoman and was one of the other women (related to someone in Tiny Tim’s family, maybe?). 

I enjoyed helping Abby learn her lines. The entire experience was a good one for Abby, despite the pressure of having to memorize many lines. She started dating a cute guy in the cast which made rehearsals that much more enjoyable for her. Abby loves to act so she was in her element when rehearsing and of course, she loved performing the play the weekend of it.

Let’s travel to a Christmas play in the past...

To help commemorate the play and the enjoyable time that Abby had that fall with it, I collected and made some Christmas Carol ornaments and put them on a real, small tree for Abby for the Christmas season (the play was in late November, so it backed up to the Christmas season). On eBay, I bought some old Hallmark ornaments with a Christmas Carol motif. The ornaments I made consisted of me typing out all of Abby’s lines, cutting them out in narrow strips of paper, rolling up the paper and placing them inside clear Christmas ornaments. 

When deciding how to decorate the tree in our room, I didn’t want to buy a lot of ornaments.  So I used a bunch of cast-off bulbs and decided to use the Christmas Carol ornaments and make the tree a Christmas Carol tree (plus random bulbs...). The ornaments are Abby’s and I hope that she wants them herself one day when she moves out for good. But for now, they will adorn the tree in our room.

Did I turn the book that contains the play written out that all the cast members received that after the play Abby placed in a pile of items to be recycled that I pulled out of the pile to keep as a memento of the play into an ornament? Yep.

Donnie asked why I had placed a Frosty the snowman hat on the tree as a topper. I told him it was not a Frosty hat! It was a Dicksonian hat! The likes of which Scrooge would have worn. But I can see how it would be mistaken for a Frosty hat.

The man, the myth, the legend- in ornament form