ROOM FOR A PONY

Merry Christmas everyone! Here’s our minimalist earth-friendly tree, in the living room where we hauled it in for its third Christmas with us.

Purchased as an infant in 2009 at Portland Nursery, it is now 23 inches tall. We picked a slow-grower on purpose so we’d be able use it for as long as possible. The rest of the year it lives in its flower pot on our front steps.

That’s a string of mini-lights we throw around it. Last year we added small red bulbs left over from my childhood — remember the glass metallic looking ones that broke into a million deadly shards if you held them too tightly? — but this year we got even less complicated than that, and went with just the lights. In among that other Christmas stuff, we found that red glass star with a handy pipe cleaner sticking out of it — perfect for attaching it to the tip.

So where did we find these few simple decorations? In with about three box-loads of ornaments we’ve inherited from family moves. Now that we’re committed to this midget tree, and have seen how little we can get by with, we’ve identified another target purge area.

Anybody wants some vintage Christmas stuff?