This is our Christmas tree for 2024. Pretty cool, huh?

Aileen wanted to do something different this year, and we contemplated making a tree out of books, or making one of out wine bottles. The latter idea was appealing because we have all these wine bottles with LED lights in them that we put together some years ago.

When we looked up making a tree of books, we realized that we would need hundreds of books to make it work. We had some books in stacks that we didn’t have shelving for, but not nearly that many, and didn’t want to unshelve our whole book collection. Then Aileen got the idea of stacking a couple of round tables and putting the globe on top, and then maybe putting books on the tables for a tree effect, which might require fewer books.

But she found it hard to get the books to look right, since she had to fit them in between the legs of the tables. She started experimenting with putting other things on the table, like those fancy boxes you can see there, and discovered that expanding the options gave her more versatility. A Christmas tree shape emerged out of the miscellany of objects she selected, at which point she really got into the process.

I’m a bit of a lumbering bear, so I didn’t dare try to help with the placement and careful balancing of the variety of objects. I did help by changing the batteries on the LEDs in the bottles, so that they would all be nice and bright on the occasions that we turn them on (we can’t just leave them on because they drain fast).

I love the way it turned out. I love the eclectic mix of objects, and how they mostly have muted colors and look “antique-y.” As a whole it’s like a sculpture with a “cluttercore” aesthetic, which suits our house (we have a lot of stuff). I love that Godzilla is in it, and the Fourth Turning book, and that there are pictures of our loved ones from the young generation.

Aileen calls it our holiday magic tree sculpture and says that everything in it means something.

Plus, our decorating is done for the season! 🙂