Juniper, Oh Juniper…
A couple of weeks ago, the druid, the gamer, and I were at the grocery store, on our maiden voyage in the car, actually. I got a couple essential items for the car, like an ice scraper and window cleaner, and we were on our way towards the checkout line when my eye landed on the varied live greenery the store was schlepping for the holidays. One item in particular caught my attention, based on conversations we three had had in the weeks prior: a small, live juniper tree in a little bucket.
In my brilliant foresight, I figured this would be just about the only tree-ish thing we’d have around the house, and grabbed it. It wasn’t on sale or anything, but it was cheap enough for me to yoink it without too much guilt. The boys quite liked it, and as soon as we got home it was set in the front window. It remained unadorned, as, well, none of us have decorations to put on that little thing, and likely most decorations would look huge and obnoxious on the plant barely a foot tall.
Last evening, the gamer gone for the weekend, the druid and I were enjoying a few MST3K movies on DVD, when I decided to hatch the plan I’d had regarding that little tree. I had a large sheet of paper, began cutting long narrow strips, and began weaving a simple, tiny paper garland, feeding new long strips of paper into the garland as old strips were used up. The druid couldn’t figure out what I was doing until the garland began to take shape. “Ahh, for the tree!” he exclaimed, excitedly. I nodded, grinned, and continued folding.
With a tiny linked garland about a yard long, I wrapped it around the tiny juniper, just tucking the length within the branches wherever I could to anchor it. After I was done and had thought about it for a few minutes, I folded the other thing I know how to do without instructions, paper cranes. I made only a total of three, tiny little ones having been folded on squares of thick paper less than an inch wide/tall.
I tucked those into the tree in strategic places, and the druid and I regarded the tree with a grin. It is an unconventional way to decorate a tree, but it’s what I had, so it’s what I did. It doesn’t look half bad.
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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.
