Condo Blues: 7 Dazzling Christmas Trees

Friday, December 14, 2012

7 Dazzling Christmas Trees

Husband and I took a much needed vacation last week. We went to Frankenmuth Michigan, which is a lot like Brigadoon but with lederhosen. You can read about the first part of our trip on Lazy BudgetChef: I Ate My Way Around Frankenmuth, Michigan here.

The two things Frankenmuth has going for it are:

It is a Bavarian town
It is Christmas year round

There is a giant Christmas store in Frankenmuth called Bronner's. Husband described as, “It looks like Christmas threw up in here” although he meant it in a nice way. It is hard to impress upon anyone who hasn’t been there that Bronner's is not your typical pop up Christmas shop.

Examples of the items they sell to commercial customers are all around the store.

They don’t just have say, an aisle of snowmen decorations; they have an entire snowman department.

I like these little guys and considered taking them home. I couldn’t figure out where I would display them. I took their picture instead.

They have my all time favorite thing - Christmas ornaments. Oh friends, Bronners has two HUGE departments full of more ornaments than you can possibly see! I kept wandering off to ogle a new shiny. Husband said I was harder to track than a little kid in a toy department. Fortunately, the blue hair makes me easier to spot in a crowd.

I am considering a new career as a snowman hat supermodel.

Seven Nontraditional Christmas Trees

Shiny glass gingerbread and candy ornaments make this tree my favorite. This brown Christmas tree works because of the coordinating colors in the gingerbread ornaments tied in with the patterned ribbon.

I want to lick it.

Here’s a fun tree in as nontraditional Christmas color palette as you can get. Hot pink, turquoise, and lime green. It is nice to see bead garland make a comeback. On the other hand, maybe bead garland never went out of fashion; it’s that I haven’t put it on my tree since we bought our house. Thoughts?

If Christmas, Miami Beach, and Mardi Gras had a baby it would be this tree.

I took a photo of the Skittles tree because the puffy ribbon bow gives me an idea for this year’s tree topper. I have tons of ribbon in my Christmas tree décor box.

Just to keep it real, Skittles are one of my favorite

artificial color and HFCS candy concoctions.

The poinsettias on this tree are the perfect solution if you have a hole between the branches of your Christmas tree. I’m not sure what those shiny curly twirly things are they used instead of garland but I like their added whimsy.

Santa’s cute at the top. Although I’m not sure how comfortable he can

be with a tree up his ho, ho, ho.

Puuuuuuuuuuuuuurple! Like the trellis Christmas trees I havein my front yard.

I really like the two toned bead garland.

A flamingo palm tree Christmas tree because I like flamingos and warm, sunny places that serve umbrella drinks under palm trees.

Christmas margaritas anyone?

The final tree will give you a better understanding of just how big this store is. The tree topper sized ornaments highlighted on the tree do not look out of place. They look to scale. Loving the white ornaments. Using ribbon and bead garland together gives me an idea for our own Christmas tree.

The clock ornament is the size of a real mantel clock. That. Big.

Given the amount of time (and drooling) I spent in the ornament departments, it is a surprise I didn’t buy any for our tree. I wanted this guy instead. It has everything I like polkas dots, giant ball ornament, and fat cartoony Santa hanging from the ceiling.

I’m sure those Christmas lights are energy efficient too.

Santa cares about these things you know.

Unfortunately, there was a problem fitting big fat cartoony Santa in our small economy size car. Not to mention Diva Claus demanded he drive back to Ohio instead of Husband even though he could not produce a valid driver’s license.

We left him hanging.

We made an unusual splurge and took one of these rolly polly Santas home instead. He was a perfect gentleman on the car ride home.

This trip was just what we needed to distress and gear up for the holidays. Come back next week to see how I used these tree ideas to reimagine our Christmas decorations!

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