There's More Than One Way to Decorate a Christmas Tree

          I've heard that the best thing an individual can do to counter climate change is to plant trees. Therefore, it seems that cutting a tree out of the woods for a Christmas tree would only add to the climate problem. One less tree equals that much more carbon in the atmosphere.

          But in my woods small evergreens bunch together in tight clumps and spend years of their lives struggling to outdo one another to rise to greatness, like the big trees around them. To free up the space around two or three of them would be to encourage their growth into the kind of big trees that do the most good for the environment. Therefore, when I take my bow saw and go into the woods to look for a Christmas tree, I look for an expendable tree whose departure from the forest will be good for the forest and for the planet.

          The result this year was that I came from the woods with a spindly thin tree on my shoulder. Of course, all wild trees are more sparsely limbed and leaved (needled) than trees on a Christmas tree lot, but my tree this year is especially flimsy. Most of the ornaments would have to go close to the trunk if they weren't to weigh the branches to the floor. Even ordinary glass balls would be too heavy for these scrawny branches.

          My mother used to say, every year when I was a child, "Let's organize the ornaments by color this year." Every year the children, stuck in tradition, as children tend to be, would ignore her and place the well-loved ornaments anywhere they wanted. But my mother's boldness to try something different encouraged me to do the same. When I set up my Christmas tree and saw how skimpy and delicate it was, I thought, "The only way to make this tree work is to use paper ornaments," something I had in abundance after making seventy-five origami ornaments as one item for my 75x75 project (see thingstodoinmy75thyear.blogspot.com)—even after giving at lot away at my seventy-fifth birthday party. Besides, I still had the origami ornaments my son and I made when he was a child (those forty-year-old ornaments) and the stars and polygonal paper balls he made in sixth grade. With those, Christmas lights, and tinsel, I thought I could deck the tree with holiday cheer.

          It worked beautifully. 

Paper cranes are the most numerous ornaments, but sparrows, roses, lilies, frogs, butterflies, and crabs also hang on the branches, in addition to a couple of rabbits, a reindeer, a sailboat, two elephants, a giraffe, a peacock, a bear, several pinwheels, dragonflies, a swan, and a whale.

There are paper stars and ribbon stars and pointy polygon paper balls, a red-and-white one and a blue-and-white one. Ornaments are made form glossy colored paper, double-sided colored paper, and plain origami paper of all colors placed haphazardly on the tree (no attempt at color coordination). Limbs hardly notice the weight. They stay uplifted and light. Tiny white Christmas lights sparkle evenly around the tree. For the final touch, tinsel dangles from the tip of every limb.

          The tree is delicate and lovely. The tinsel sparkles and twinkles; the ornaments dangle with dainty appropriateness. Every morning when I wake up, I plug in the lights and am enchanted all over again.

          I am free to feel enchanted because I'm not weighed down with the guilt of cutting down a tree necessary to the forest. And I can agree with my mother, too: there's more than one way to make a Christmas tree beautiful. Next year maybe I'll try the color theme.