General Discussion & Chat: Christmas trees, 1 by jkom51

jkom51 wrote:
So nice to see all the different holiday decorations! Like some I'm allergic to pine trees (nice gaudy facial rashes!) so had to switch to artificial. I miss the scent of pine but oh well, can't have everything. I like to collect unique ornaments and living here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are lots of lovely handmade Asian collectibles to buy. Here's a picture of our tree as well as a close-up of the tree topper. I made it after seeing a similar one in a catalog for $75 and thought, 'hey, I can do that myself!' In the close-up you can see a few of my favorite ornaments--bottom center is a delicate capiz-shell sleigh pulled by two butterflies of different sizes. Right above it to one side is a Chinese silk embroidered flower with a long pink tassel. Halfway-up on the LH side, unfortunately turned the wrong way, there's a pair of Chinese slippers (you can only see the white bottoms pointed down, with a red tassel attached) that are yellow silk satin, embroidered all over in tiny stitches.

We have several dragons, too; a wooden Indonesian sea-dragon and a plush Chinese dragon in gold lame with red felt legs and tail. There's glass dragonflies, little satin penguins with formal red bowties, embroidered and painted Chinese figures of court ladies and little children, as well as lots of candy canes with ribbon bows and four strings of mini-lights.

Takes three days to put everything up and just as much time to take it down, but it sure is pretty when it's done. Lifts our spirits every night!