About my balls

In an effort to smack ourselves into the holiday spirit we've put up the Christmas tree. As I've said in the past, I don't like a lot of holiday decor, but what I do decorate, I want to decorate well. Our tree began with clear lights, followed by pearl balls and more balls in three different shades of silver. I also threw in the 9 Pottery Barn mercury glass drops I bought on after-Christmas clearance a few years ago. (these are wonderful, I wish I'd tried to get more, eBay has none at the moment) It was sort of monochromatic (which I like) and simple (also good), but seemed to lack something. Brett said the something was color.

I'd taken the green balls and put them in a glass urn on our new cabinet in the entry. The red and blue ones went in a huge glass hurricane on the sideboard in a subtle Christmas nod to our alma mater. And the gold ones...they stayed in their boxes in the plastic tub. I have some gorgeous brown ones as well, but no real use for them this year. And my small collection of retro Radko Shiny-Brite are on the dining room table in the white ironstone bowl I brought back from Paris.

The point being, I have a thing about buying Christmas balls. In a few years we'll have a complete wardrobe of them in every color, because it seems I can only handle a limited pallette on our tree.

Our office closed at 4pm today because of the ice and snow. Frugal shopper (and 4-wheel driver) that I am, off I went to Hobby Lobby to find some half off bargains to pimp our tree.

You could burn about 80 percent of that store at no real loss, but there are a few things there I can put to work. I found a couple sets of onion-shaped ornaments in a really great blue. Think blueprint rather than navy or royal. I also picked up a box of 12 sort of swirling, ribbed, tulip-shaped things that were that blue over silver. They're plastic, and I thought they might be awful, but they've turned out to be just fine.

And then, there in the aisle of glass ornaments, was what I had in the back of my mind but never thought anyone would have: burnt orange Christmas balls. I bought three six packs. Finally, some blue plaid organza ribbon for garland finishes it nicely, without being overly visible. (Note to lower-price-point ribbon manufacturers: There is still a market for ribbon without wired edges. Please remember us going forward.)

So the tree trimming is complete. Not overly traditional, but not at all out-there, and we're way pleased with the result.

(my apologies to anyone offended by this post's title. I'm afraid I'm just the kind of boy who cant resist a good ball joke)