Oh, Tannenbaum!

We have a pretty good sized living room, with 12 foot ceilings, and my usual Christmas tree runs about 6 1/2 - 7 feet, and about a foot higher once the topper tops it. But this year....

 

I got my tree from the same place as usual, but I phoned it in this year, and asked for a tree between 5 - 6 feet, figuring that with my right arm range of motion still being limited...

Anyway, I just got my tree a couple of days ago, and they "surprised" me with a behemoth for the price of a 5-6 foot tree.

I couldn't get a full shot without including things like my husband's napping feet, but this will give you an idea: this is one honkin' Christmas tree (by my standards, anyway).

Good thing I have about 250 cool ornaments accumulated over the years. And good thing the tree is a large (or, in Starbuckese, a "venti"), because I didn't do holly and and winterberry and greens this year, nor did I put out all of my decorations.

The important ones have made it out, of course, including:

Here, plastic Santa on reindeer with broken leg is artfully posed against a black backdrop, but in real life it goes in my kitchen. I'm not sure exactly when this one came into the family, but I'm guessing my parents got it for one of their first Christmases, and it's definitely got that late 1940's look and feel.

It wouldn't be Christmas without it. (Yes, the original is still the greatest.)

Unless I get ambitious - and, frankly, I don't feel much ambitious coming on - I will not be posting on Pink Slip until the New Year.

So, Happy Holidays (Chanukah - yes, I know it's over, Kwanzaa, Eid, Winter Solstice) - you can pick which ever one makes you merry and bright.

For me, it's Christmas. (And this year, it's white with a vengeance: we've already gotten 2 feet of snow in Boston.)

So, Merry Christmas to all.

And, to celebrate my bilateral ethnic heritage, here you go:

• Nollaig Shona Duit
• Froehliche Weihnachten

For a pretty exhaustive list of Christmas greetings around the world, here's a handy link. (And, yes, I had to cheat a bit. I knew the German, but only recall the "Nollaig" in Irish -  remnant of a failed effort to teach myself the native tongue from wayback.)