Have you ever gone online to look for inspiration for Christmas tree decor? Or am I the only one?
There’s always one thing that stands out to me, one thing I notice and one thing I just don’t have with my own tree.
Perfection.
I have mangey Christmas trees in comparison to the perfectly manicured, green triangle-of-a-tree I see in inspirational photos. And sometimes, it gets to me.
Oh, I don’t try for the Charley Brown look. But the fact is…I harvest my Christmas tree from the wild woods and forests around me.
And truely country Christmas trees are never perfect.
They have gaps in the foliage where you can see bark and branches. They aren’t perfectly symmetrical because they haven’t been trimmed (unless a deer, elk or moose stopped for a snack and even then, they’ll leave it uneven). The north side of the tree has thinner foliage because it sees less sun and the tops tend to be a bit scraggly and thin.
In all my years of tree hunting, I’ve never had a perfect Christmas tree. Because actual country Christmas trees aren’t perfect.
At least mine aren’t.
Spruce, pine, fir or otherwise, coniferous trees that I harvest from the back of our property or up a nearby logging road will never look like the perfectly manicured triangles you get from a tree farm.
Unless you carefully select and prune your wild trees years ahead of time, that is.
It’s been standing out to me this year that a real country Christmas tree is an imperfect one.
So I’ve been giving myself a strict talking to this season.
Don’t be ashamed of your tree. Yah, yah…I know you’re a blogger who is supposed to be inspiring and all that stuff, but the fact is, you have a real, country Christmas tree. And they just aren’t perfect.
So don’t be ashamed if your tree doesn’t have the perfect, triangular shape of a farmed tree. Or if you can actually hang your ornaments on branches. Or if it’s sparse on one side or thin at the bottom or scraggly at the top.
Fact is, these wild harvested Christmas trees are the real deal and folks in rural areas have been using them to celebrate Christmas for generations.
So this year, I’ve decided to just enjoy decorating my country style Christmas tree with all it’s blemishes and imperfections.
White lights, fir cones, crocheted-and-starched snowflakes, cloth covered ball ornaments and those orange-and-nut ornaments that just turned nasty and need to be replaced (talk about imperfections!), I’m going to drop the comparison game and just enjoy my rustic country Christmas tree because it brings an air of celebration to our home as we prepare to celebrate the gift of Christ our Saviour.
I don’t have a perfect a Christmas tree. And in many ways, it suits. An imperfect tree suits my imperfect country cottage, my imperfect decor and the imperfect person that I am.
And this year, I aim to embrace it, with all it’s glorious imperfections.
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