Our first Christmas tree

the first weekend of december was reserved for bringing all things christmas into our home -- which in the case of marlon and myself was basically buying a tree and a couple of wreaths. we had decided to get a plastic tree despite the surprising availability of fresh trees here (wait, why am i surprised -- this is expatland!), and i had decided to make my own trimmings this year.

first, the tree...

the search for the perfect tree took several days of shopping. we saw sad, sparse $29.90 trees at carrefour, a momentarily stunning glossy black pine tree at paragon (which very quickly went from cool to TEE-AYCH), lush but exorbitantly priced trees at tang's ($259 for four feet of plastic!), and finally settled on a moderately priced ($95), decently shaped five-foot tree at novena square, where marlon works.

the most irksome thing about buying a tree here: salespersons attempt to convince you that every tree is a foot taller than it actually is. marlon is taller than our supposedly six-foot tree. the good thing is that salespersons actually seem knowledgeable about trees. when marlon and i were contemplating an all-white tree, the salesman at actually advised us against buying it, even if it was more expensive than a green tree. apparently customers who had bought white trees in the past found that it looked dirty yellow under certain lights, and that it was hard to keep clean. who knew?

next, the trimmings!

as we scouted around for trees, i looked at store-bought trimmings as well -- and quickly confirmed that i was making the right choice in choosing to make my own ornaments. you have two choices, basically: expensive or generic. i don't know what was a worse prospect: pay $8.90 PER PIECE for a faux venetian tasseled bauble, or having a tree that was identical to the rest of the population. 

my resolve strengthened, i trooped to art friend in takashimaya for some DIY supplies. while i was there, i picked up a dozen red and gold balls since i figured i wouldn't be able to make enough ornaments to actually fill up an entire tree. we also picked up some ribbon for the tree, wreaths for the front door and holly garlands for the window at tangs.

to work, to work

setting up the tree took two weekends. on the first weekend, marlon got to do manly stuff like unpack the tree and assemble it...

i got to do girly stuff like cut out shapes from felt, figure out how to use bits and pieces of paper from my collage collection (placemats and dictionaries, anyone?), think of cute color combinations and tie ribbons...

... and rogue got to do cat stuff like sniff around the new tree and wonder how to destroy it with the maximum amount of fun.

we also did couple-y stuff like take pictures with the self-timer documenting this historic first in our newly joint household.

and this is how the tree looked at the end of the first weekend.

our biggest achievement was just having the tree up! the second weekend though was when the real transformation took place with all the lights, ornaments, and a special something that marlon cooked up to top off the whole shebang.

but that's something for my next post! it's cold and rainy, it's a non-working holiday, and a book and a cup of coffee with cinnamon and nutmeg await my attention...