Base In Box

As part of downsizing for moving to a smaller home, Hubby Tony and I have gotten rid of a lot of things. One of them was the 8-foot tall artificial Christmas tree that we've used for several years. It was beautiful, but almost four feet in diameter at the bottom, which would take up much too much space in a new, smaller living area.

Our original plan was to close on the sale of our house late next week. Because I would just have to box everything up to vacate the place, I was OK with not putting up any decorations. However, two weeks ago the sale contract fell through. Unless someone shows up in the next day or so and wants immediate possession, we'll be in the house longer than originally planned, and I decided that it was important to bring in a little bit of the holiday season.

I never shop on Black Friday, but when I was looking through the huge stack of ads that came with our newspaper on Thanksgiving Day, I saw that one of the home goods stores had a six foot pre-lit tree for only $20. The price was certainly right, and the size would be perfect in our new condo, so I decided to wake up when it was still very dark out and make a trek to the store. Even though I arrived 15 minutes later than the opening time, they still had plenty of stock.

Our old tree came in a box that was so big and heavy it took two of us to get up the basement steps. This new one came in a box I could pick up with one hand! It took less than a minute to assemble the base and put the tree together, but a lot longer than that to 'fluff' all the branches out to make the tree look realistic. Once it was in the living room I realized that this tree was too small for the space, mainly because of the 9-foot tall ceilings. It also had a long, unattractive-looking metal trunk. After pondering on how I could make it look better, this is what I came up with:

Still needs a couple more ornaments

The bottom box brings the top of the tree up to the height of the windows on either side of it. The base of the tree is sitting inside the top box, which hides the base. I think it looks much better now.

Five years ago today: Four Burners, One Light