I'm usually of the Bah Humbug school of thought when it comes to Christmas Trees. Living in a five floor walkup in a city where christmas trees are a proverbial arm and a leg would do that to you. Besides I'm never really here anyway -Christmas is either vacation time or its at someone else's house.
I did however bring back some branches of Eastern White Pine from Mamaroneck a couple of weeks ago and stuffed them in a gigantic glass container I have. The container is one of those impulse buys that you wonder why you ever got in the first place. I remember being attracted to the scale of it and it had a strange silvery cast that seemd appealing when I saw it at the flea market. When I brought it home, the silvery-ness washed out and it turned out to be really cumbersome when filled with water so more often than not it rarely got used, idling up valuable apartment space.
Sitting back and looking at the combination of pine and gigantic glass bauble, and I swear I really didn't contrive this- the thought only occurred afterwards - that it was really quite an interesting modern take on ye olde Christmas Tree. Spare, fresh, unadorned the container suggesting a traditional ornament. I might have created myself a Christmas tradition for the years ahead.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, Du kannst mir sehr gefallen.
