Themed Christmas trees

’Tis the season to be jolly…not to coordinate your tree with your great room décor.

A Christmas tree should be a joyous jumble of handmade ornaments, crude garlands, and twinkling lights.

What is should not be: an accessory. It should not be tricked out to match your couch or your carpet or your paint color. It shouldn’t be tastefully, blandly monochromatic. And it shouldn’t look like it belongs on the floor of your local Pottery Barn or Joann Fabrics. When my parents split, my mom left behind the handmade ornaments our family had made and accumulated over the years. Instead of ornaments made out of glitter and a green metal ashtray from McDonalds (remember those?), we had a fake flocked tree adorned with blue plaid bows and little white seagulls perched in wooden napkin rings. Color me Ebenezer, but this didn’t exactly read Christmas to me. It screamed “aisle 4 in Michaels Crafts,” not a place where I wanted to spend much time during the holidays, for fear of stabbing my eyes out with florist’s wire.

Please pull out all of your ornaments—the wonky handmade ones, the corny gifts, the big-ass, almost-to-scale Santa you bought on an ill-advised trip to a Christmas Shoppe—and lather up your tree the way God and the Von Trapp family intended.

(photo: barefootfloor.com)

Inexplicable bruises

I’m clumsy. That’s no surprise to anyone who knows about my inner ear imbalance. But riddle me Alzheimer’s: when exactly did I drive the back of my calf into a wall, causing it to look like a bruised pear? Did I fall on the inside of my forearm in the last 48 hours? And why exactly is my index finger puffed up?

I like things rough as much as the next gal, but it seems to me that I actually have to make contact with someone or something in order to sport a little friendly bruising. When a mysterious mark on my right earlobe appears, I think it’s time to install some motion-censor cameras because the only logical answer is paranormal activity.

(photo: prettyfeathers.com)