I'm Dreaming of a Round Christmas.... Tree

Every Christmas I am plagued with the grand idea of replicating the Christmas trees of my early childhood. Every dang Christmas, I dig up old photos, turn house upside down for a very un-informative drawing, trying to figure out how my mother managed to create the coolest Christmas tree - ever.  I even asked her how to make it once.




Isn't it cool?  That's my dad handing out
 presents and me next to him.  Those other
kids are cousins, and the woman on the left
is my mom.
1965

  This is what she told me years ago:  You just go to the hardware store and get some chicken wire and some pliers, then go to the tree seller and ask for the limbs they cut off the trees that they'll be throwing away.  After that, go home and form the chicken wire into the shape of a ball.  Then you attach the limbs to the ball-shaped chicken wire with some other florist wire, one by one, until *poof*, you got yourself a round Christmas tree!  Of course, it must be hung on the ceiling, strung with lights and decorated with glass balls and a long pretty ribbon that hangs gracefully off the bottom.  And when you're feeling really fancy, you go have it flocked!





Viola!
1968

  



Keeps the kiddos away from the glass ornaments!
That's me (one the left) and my sister.
1968

  Every year, I get the ambitious notion that I will just whip up one of these doozies and hang it in all it's strange glory in our big front window for all our neighbors to admire.  And every year, I get busy and put it off until I don't have the time, this year being no exception.  Next year, though.  Maybe I'll blog about it, too!