The Blessing Tree
Made with trial, error, pliers, and love.
“There is no such thing as the perfect Christmas tree, only the perfect tree for you.” — Joe Pera
Raymond & I crafted this tree to celebrate the holiday traditions we already love and to create one of our own.
On the tree, we’ve hung 24 ornaments: each colored black on the back and decorated with a number from 1 to 24 on the front. Leading up to Christmas, we’ll flip the day’s corresponding ornament so the numbered side faces outward. Each day we’ll share with one another something that we’ve been grateful for this past year.
Though not as grand as a 6' evergreen, this tree of wood and wire has everything we need.
We initiated the tree around 1am. Raymond said he is grateful for his five senses (hard to top that). I said I am grateful for the blankets that I cocoon into each night.
Making the tree
On an infinite scroll through Tumblr, I came across this photo:
I thought it was a beautiful interpretation of a Christmas tree — wood cubes for the trunk; copper wire for the branches; and geometric chips for the ornaments. The beauty, I thought, was in the act of reducing a tree to its most basic forms.
Despite being a ubiquitous symbol of the holidays and all the peace, joy, and love associated with them, Christmas trees hold little personal significance to me. I wanted to make a tree that appealed to my simple tastes and, more importantly, into which I could construct my own meaning.
I showed the sketch to Raymond, and we made a list of materials we would need to make it A Real Thing:
The materials were inexpensive for us: Raymond already had the wood that we would use as the tree base, and we bought the circles, clothespins, wire, and dowel at Jerry’s for a little under $15.
Then we got to make it!
Attempting to replicate my sketch, we looped the copper wire around the pole. We imagined that the loops would wrap tightly around the top of the pole, then gracefully descend into larger loops. With little support and tension, however, the wire spiraled out of control and proved too difficult to tame.
Raymond also informed me that “wire spiral tree” brought up a billion cookie-cutter results on Google. So we tried something else.
We pulled the copper wire taut against the dowel and twisted the ends of the wire together beneath the wood. We did this 3 more times, sectioning the tree into 8 segments.
To hang the ornaments, we clasped the ends of short wire strands around the vertical ones.
We staggered the horizontal strands to comfortably fit 24 ornaments, then decorated the ornaments themselves. I drew the even-numbered ornaments and Raymond drew the odd.
Around this time, we remembered that we had this sassy Santa from my friend Ann. We put him inside the tree and he looked right at home.
The end.
