O Tannenbaum

If it looks like something is missing...it is. Like, umm, the top??

By December 20th, pickin's are pretty slim in the Christmas tree department. Pretty much all the 'cut your own' places operate only on the weekends. With our shopping and visiting and so-tired-we're-falling-face-first-into-bed last weekend, I have no idea when we would have had time to go do that. And besides, we enjoyed a Norman Rockwell-esque, rosy-cheeked tree-cutting experience in rural Pennsylvania 3 weeks ago. So: a weeks-old pre-cut one it was. And a discount for the missing top. I gravitated toward the two remaining Frasier firs that were actually triangular-shaped. 'But this one is fuller,' said Tim in an *almost* little boy voice. So the topless one it was.

So how to decorate/disguise this disfigurement? I have ideas. I have gold star-shaped boxes and baskets, and I plan to make an homage to Grandma Zucker using her cookie cutter collection. The very *first* idea that popped into my head was to go to one of those naughty adult stores and buy a bunch of pasties and take all my most colorful bras and decorate the topless tree with those. My own earthy humor-loving family probably would have laughed uproariously at it. But the thought of standing before my in-laws stopped me cold. Oh well...