Deck the Halls

How can you help but be full of holiday spirit when surrounded by glittering aluminum?

I decided to go with a pink, silver and gold theme this year so my halls aren't quite as bedecked as with the blue and silver scheme of old (well, the past three years), but I'll probably be thankful for that in January when it's time to put it all away. Things have been too busy lately to go all out anyway, but a little vintage sparkle helps to make those nights at the computer a little cheerier.

I love my "tacky tree" as my father describes these vintage jewels. I found it at an antique store in Missouri when I took a day off from working on my master's degree to go junk hunting with the girls of the family. It's a little Charlie Brown pathetic in that the center post has some chips, it's missing several limbs and the limbs that are here are rather, um, crumpled. Nonetheless, I love its bling and this was before these trees became so popular so I got a real bargain on it. My mother and aunt looked at it and said, "Oh, um, sure, yeah, you should get that" while they were clearly thinking, "Good grief that thing is disgusting. She was clearly raised by wolves with no taste. We must get her out of the library more often and really, maybe we should get her new glasses while we're at it. At least she lives far away so we can just pretend we don't know her."

They both had silver "tacky trees" of their own the following year.

My mom even found the rotating color lamp which is now a fire hazard, but a pretty cool fire hazard.

These sunburst ornaments are some of my favorites, if only because they just make you go "huh?" Sun faces on Christmas ornaments when there's a foot of snow outside? I found them at a local thrift store and I can only imagine that they once belonged to a little Italian or Polish grandma with orange Aqua Net hair, the kind of little old lady who goes to Florida for the winter. She and Ralph tool around Buffalo in the summer in a big Caddy, decorating the front lawn with flamingos and gnomes and talking about the big shuffleboard tournament in Palm Springs. They probably shipped these home to the kiddies, stuck in Buffalo for the winter. I imagine little Ethel wrote out a note that annoyed her daughter to no end so she dumped the sun-themed ornaments into a box with the stale fruitcake and the bedazzled sweatsuit with matching floral muu-muu and sent the lot to the junk, where of course I bought them and brought them home to my own kitschy abode. I get to think of dear, crazy Ethel every year when I hang them up. I bet Ethel would be happy to come visit and help, provided I gave her a big cup of rum with a dash of egg nog.

Hope your days are sparkly and your hearths bedecked with tacky or tasteful!

Now if I could only find one of Ethel's flamingos to use as a tree topper...

P.S. If anyone else is into junk hunts, I mean, vintage treasure searches, check out the Vintage Swaps. I'm going to give it a try for a round in January. The theme is "beauty" and I definitely think that means I need to get cracking on making a bag or two out of those trampy toiletry curtains.