Frugal Christmas tree
Christmas branch
Rather than buy a tree this year, we headed out into the woods to pick out own. It would have been wrong to hack one down, of course, so we walked through the trees until we found a pile of cut branches drying by the path, and dragged one home.
It’s spent the last couple of weeks planted in a pot full of gravel, arching gracefully over the TV. No watering, no needle drop, no temptation for the cat to climb up it and make a home in the upper branches. It’s been the perfect Christmas companion.
Things we’ve learnt this year from our first attempt:
- Find a slender branch with a good curve to it so you have plenty of horizontal - or nearly horizontal - wood on which to hang your decorations.
- Don’t pick anything too thick, as no matter how sturdy your base its natural tendency will be to lay flat on the floor. If you do, you’ll spend most of your Christmas propping it up.
- Low-key decorations work best. Avoid too much sparkle and glamour and get rich deep tones and non-reflective surfaces to complement the wood.
- Fewer lights is better. We had 80 on our branch, and it was about 30 too many. If we were starting from scratch again next year I’d look for 50 lights or fewer.
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