Christmas trees

I don't think that I've ever personally had a traditional Christmas tree. Every year, we pull the tree out of the attic and decorate with BLady's collection of Hallmark ball ornaments. Well, many of them are Hallmark, but that is a separate post. BLady had an '80s bottlebrush-looking tree until just a few years ago. I like the new tree, and the bottlebrush tree will always bring a bit of nostalgia.

But for me, I've done the non-traditional thing. Way back when I lived in the dorm, I made a Christmas tree out of construction paper and taped it to the wall. When I first moved to WI, I put ornaments on a piece of evergreen garland that I draped along the front of the counter. Then, I came up with my current tree.

That's right. It's branches. I drove down a country lane and picked branches from the brush along side the road. Luckily, the cows were the only ones watching. The vase came from Anthropologie. I ended up liking it so much that it lives out the rest of the year (minus the branches). I've stored the branches in my storage unit, although I may just toss them this year and get fresh for next Christmas. Or, I could do as I've meant to do since the beginning and spray paint the branches. I like either white or a bronze color. Any ideas?

Or, I could go down a different route next year. Here are some non-traditional Christmas trees that I came across this season. The post-it note tree would be great on my office door, although the division assistant may get made about the waste of post-it notes (which I would supply myself).

From Style Files

From PoppyTalk

From Design*Sponge