Eye candy!

Yes, I really do put two trees up each year. Crazy to most, I know—though I saw on the Today Show yesterday that Sandra Dee puts up 8 trees, so who's crazy now?! Two years ago I shared my silver tree with readers, and this year I'm showing you my 'gold tree.' I guess you can call it gold and red. As an homage to Tony Duquette, more is more, and trust me, this tree is dripping and drooping with eye candy ornaments.

The tree is first covered in illegal amounts of white twinkle lights, meaning stringing together way more lengths of lights than the manufacturer suggests one connects together, then I start  hanging the big, heavy red crackle balls deep in the tree on the thicker branches.Then, over several patient hours, and always with a never-ending glass of Captain Morgan spiked egg nog, I hang all the rest of the scrumptious jewels. Like my silver tree, many of the ornaments are made in India, such as the intricately beaded paisley shaped ornaments... the balls, pears and stars, and beaded tassels. Also, many of the ornaments are brass—brass Parisian Eiffel towers, brass musical notes, brass fleur de lis, brass snowflakes, and and large brass bells that really ding. (Duh, how else will the angels get their wings?) I have ornaments that I call sputniks, and whirligigs, and flying saucers, the latter of which are really round gold beaded coasters. There are also bedazzled, Italian or Greek looking jeweled crosses like you might see at the Vatican... super gaudy Liberace style, (she said, unashamed.), and just for fun I have gold disco ball ornaments that catch the sunlight causing 'disco fairies dance' on the ceiling on sunny days, which is super magical. At the end of the trimming process I add on loads of small gold crackle balls, and little red raindrops on the end of each branch. After the tree comes down, I pack each group of ornaments—bought in groups of at least 12— into zip lock baggies, then into beautiful gold pouches and bags that I made. So every Christmas when I open the ornaments, it's a special thing.