Ladies: Start your engines. The year’s most competitive sport is about to begin. Forget football. Our country’s real national pastime engages more players, moving in more directions at once.
The sport: Christmas tree decorating. And the race is on.
As men sit by the tube and watch overweight jocks in spandex knock each other over, we women dash to hobby stores, pushing one another out of the way for the last box of burgundy ornaments, and dog piling on the only remaining mini white twinkle lights. Then, we slow dance with a tree that feels like a porcupine with rigor mortis.
Motivating us to pursue this extreme sport are the neighbors. Just when we think our tree looks pretty good, we go to, say, the Swansons’ house. Their tree is wrapped in gold lamé and dripping with Swarovski crystals. We vow to do better.
This is how, at my house, the once peaceful family ritual of tree trimming has turned monomaniacal. We start out well. We make hot cider and play holiday music. At halftime my husband does his part – the lights. Then my kids and I start with the base layer of ornaments, about 200 matching glass balls that I insist get hung in pairs.
“Clumps of two!” The older daughter twirls a circle around her ear intimating that I’m crazy. I’m used to this. Just because I’m picky, my family says I have an obsessive compulsive disorder. Then – Keesh! We all turn at the sound of glass ornament meeting stone floor. Everyone’s quiet while we wait to see who’s going to get it. And we’re not even to the fun ornaments yet.
Soon, I’m decorating by myself. Somewhere in the next room, my husband is yelling, “Get ’em! You loser!”
Ahh, Christmas. Let the games begin.
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area.
A terrifically trimmed tree
To better compete in this year’s Christmas Tree Olympics, I called Chicago-based floral and tree designer Tatiana Chelekhova. Here are her ground rules:
Light it right: Great Christmas trees glow from the inside, Chelekhova says. Too often people wrap lights around the tree (guilty!). Instead, wrap lights around branches starting from the outside moving in toward the trunk. Continue wrapping branches from the trunk to outer edge. Arrange strands so plug ends connect to the center. Affix a power strip to the main trunk to ground light strands.
Exercise color control: Hang ornaments that are all one or two colors. Go for all silver, or silver with pink. Or mix a jewel tone with a metallic, like royal blue and gold. You may have to ruthlessly edit ornaments, but the result is worth it. Carry your theme color into other holiday decorations throughout your home.
Add texture: Mix shiny ornaments with matte ones, and velvet bows with silk flowers such as showy magnolias. Put shiny ornaments in the tree’s interior, and duller ones toward the surface, small ornaments higher and large ones lower.
Top it off: Take spools of wire-edged ribbon (in your color). Tie ends together to create a large bow for the treetop. Let ends trail over the tree to the floor. Bend waves in the ribbons so they ripple.
Skirt the issue: When you’re done, wrap the tree base in a festive skirt that ties into the theme. Hey, you weren’t going to wear that purple bridesmaid dress again, were you?
