holidays

Christmas Tree 2018: Blue, White and Natural Wood

Once upon a time a certain blogger became over-zealous in downsizing her possessions before moving back to the United States. She gave away her faux Christmas tree only to discover there WAS room in the shipping container. Alas, it was too late. The tree was gone and the ship was actually setting sail.

Much to her husband’s dismay, her only choice was to buy a new tree to bring sparkle and magic to their new home at Christmas. Much to her husband’s delight, the new tree was found on deep discount at Michael’s because a certain blogger has the Michael’s phone app with all the coupons. The husband was so overcome with joy that he said something super romantic like, “We’ll get our money’s worth out of this tree a lot faster now.”

Ah, yes, the husband certainly was a sweet talker and they lived happily ever after.

But, seriously, I did give our Christmas tree to a nice lady in Ireland. I listed it for free on a site similar to, but much better than Craigslist.

This lady was so happy to take the tree off my hands in April that she brought me a box of chocolates! Can you even imagine my surprise? I was floored by the fact that someone wouldn’t want something for free.

Now, back to our new tree.

Some families go to a Christmas tree farm to soak in that magical, memory-making experience of chopping down a tree, taking it home and discovering that it is three times too big for the space.

Our magical experience was super similar to that. We trekked through three different stores to find this tree. It took two of us to carry it back to the car because the box was deceptively heavy. And it took me approximately half my life to fluff all the branches.

Family bonding. There’s nothing like it.

This year I went with a white, navy blue and natural wood color scheme on my tree. I really struggle with my tree not somehow coordinating with everything else in my space, so I stuck to colors that I know work with the rest of my decor and blue is one of them.

All the white ornaments on the tree were given to me by The Junk Whisperer (aka my stepmom). She has pretty things that I will gladly take off her hands and I’m fairly certain that I’ve never given her a box of chocolates. Grandkids are just as good, right?!?

The navy velvet ribbon and wood bead garland came from Michael’s. I clipped greenery and some small twigs from my yard to add extra texture to the tree.

The twigs, in their natural state, didn’t look quite right, so I painted them with white craft paint. I probably should have removed them from the tree before I painted them, but I couldn’t handle the thought of undoing my “work.” I’m really hoping I didn’t drip any white paint on the tree branches though. If I did, I guarantee you next year I’ll forget and wonder if a bird got loose in the Christmas decor.

I finished the tree off with some handmade wood ornaments. I’ll share more about those later.

If you’re wondering about all the special construction paper ornaments made by my children, do not fret. My kids each have a tree in their rooms filled with all the sentimental ornaments. They absolutely love this tradition and falling asleep to the light of a Christmas tree is so magical.

I should know…I quite often will snuggle with my kids at night only to wake up 4 hours later wondering where I am. Oh, right. Still in the kid bed and I have the ache in my back to prove it!

But those Christmas lights make me so happy.


Here are the tree sources all from Michael’s:

Galvanized Metal Tree Collar

7.5′ Pre-lit Christmas Tree

Wood Bead Garland

*Affiliate links used here. Thanks for supporting this blog.*


I hope you enjoyed this story of how my Christmas Tree 2018 came to be. Here are stories and pictures about past Christmas trees.

Christmas Tree 2017

Christmas Tree 2016

Mini Leather Christmas Trees

Living in Ireland: Festival of Trees

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