My Nearly-Naked Tree

This year: well… yeah. I think, based on what I’ve seen on social media, quite a lot of people have reached a consensus that 2016 hasn’t been our favorite year in recent memory.

Perhaps that, and for many of my own reasons why (which I’ll cover in my 2016 recap and not this post), I expected myself to go all out on the holiday decorations. I’m stubborn (duh, hi, have we met?), so I wanted to end the year on a high note: a last, big flourish of Christmasy-ness. Lotsa glitter. Silver. Gold. White.

Classic. Complete. Done.

And instead, I did what felt like nothing. I did about 3% of the things I thought I was going to do.

I started out ambitious; I put my tree up the weekend of Thanksgiving. I bought it for myself last year and was really looking forward to getting home from my parents’ house and immediately starting the holiday season. It’s pre-lit and snaps together in only three pieces (which I LOVE — I can’t find the exact one online anymore, so here’s the affiliate link for one that’s similar). I plugged it in, stood in the glow of the white lights…

… and basically didn’t bother to throw on a single ornament for all of December.

At first, I thought the usual culprit — procrastination — was to blame. Every day that I walked by my tree, I told myself tomorrow, and kept doing other things. I sorted through all of my ornaments for the color scheme I wanted to go with. I bought four new ornaments that coordinated with the color scheme I planned to go with. And yet, tomorrow. I left it as-is.

It was blank (well, almost, since the lights were already attached) and comforting. I could walk by, let my eyes glaze over, and just appreciate my nearly-naked tree. I put a skirt on it because it seemed silly without one, but that was it.

I did the holiday thing at other people’s houses and came home to doing my own, quiet thing. It’s actually been really nice to feel a sense of slowness at a time of year where everything else seems so rushed. I’ve been spending time with family, new and old friends, and neglected to feel bad about not throwing glitter on a year that I am not even planning to be friends with as of January 1st.

In hindsight, I’m glad I did things this way; my 2016 tree reflects my feelings about 2016 pretty well.

How I felt about 2015:

How I feel about 2016:

Yep… seems about right.

So, it’s not going to be in anyone’s pretty Christmas roundup or get pinned a million times, and that’s perfectly alright. Instead, I’m going to spend the rest of the season getting myself ready to bring on a new year with lots more in store (for example, in case you missed my comments in the sneak peek last week, I have been working with a brand on my laundry room makeover project and that big reveal is coming in January).

Have you ever put up a Christmas tree, only to not decorate it? I know I can’t be the only one, but I’m curious how many of you did the same or similar!

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