Ohhhhh Tannenbaum - Part 2

 So my prized tree (Ohhhhh Tannenbaum - Part 1) was going to be revised and personalized. I hauled bins from the downstairs and turned my small living room into a disaster area. I hung some of our own ornaments on the tree and it looked wrong. It became obvious that I needed to remove more "stuff". Off came the huge top of the tree, then the rest of the ribbons. Soon I had stripped all but the lights off the tree. Tired, I decided to clear my mind and try to figure out how to proceed. What better way to clear the mind and think, but to have a cup of tea....with a drop or three of rum in it.

Since giant bows rather than stars, angels or other tree toppers are the style these days, I created my own. It was gorgeous. I rethreaded some ribbon into a bow. This included the colours in our ornaments...not bad so far. Time for bed.

This morning, I walked into the living room and was aghast. I had forgotten about the mess! I wasted no time adding ornaments to the tree. I soon realized that not only did it look bad, but the giant bow at the top, was causing the tree to tilt. Definitely a problem. Annoyed, I once again removed everything from the tree. My living room was a sea of ribbon, sinamay, sparkly picks, leafy branches, boxes of designer ornaments, bins of family decorations, tinsel, hooks, tissue paper and more. Besides that, the carpet was covered in glitter.

Working on two theories...less is more and third time's a charm, I was determined to complete the tree. I sorted and organized ornaments and decided on no ribbon. I sorted the balls, eliminated reds and greens, keeping only my gold and cream ones. To these, I added some of the designer decorations until the tree looked acceptable. My time saving  "designer tree" had now cost me several Christmases in effort.

How did I get my final inspiration? It came part way through the second dismantling. I located a very old, golden, glass, German tree topper. Eine "spitz". It required a ladder, some tin snips and some stuffing to install it correctly atop the tree. The tree is now simple, pretty and full of personal ornaments. There's no tinsel, no garland, no ribbon.

The tree is meaningful. What's particularly symbolic is the inside of the tree topper. It contains a nativity scene.