A Christmas Tree with Snow

I have a 3 foot high Christmas tree that snows. 

The snow drops into a green umbrella that sits upside-down, with the tree in it.

The snow (small Styrofoam pellets) is recycled through the trunk of the tree, up to the top of the tree, and then falls again into the umbrella.

At the same time Christmas music plays.

Who would buy such a tree in the first place? Wyona did. I bought one because I was with Wyona and buying that tree looked like a kind of fun that I don’t usually allow myself to have.

Wyona also buys the most outrageous Christmas dancing toys, e.g. plush dogs that sing and dance forward and then backward but that would be for another post.

The snowing Christmas tree should come with some warnings to Grandmothers who buy them. The first warning would be that no matter who comes over to the house to visit (old or young), after they leave the grandmother has to sweep up small bits of snow that have somehow missed the umbrella and are now on the floor.  The snow goes on the floor if the machine is turned up to the highest volume of snow that it can blow -- which looks just beautiful, but makes quite a mess on the floor.

These are bits of snow that seem to be reverse magnetized, so that when I get close to sweeping them up they separate and all run away from the dustpan I am trying to catch them with.

I decided just to stay calm, knowing that this might be an on-going problem no matter who is visiting, and I keep my broom close at hand. After all, what is a little sweeping compared to a lot of Christmas joy.

Now tonight I noticed Betty and Alice were playing with some tiny dolls, random 2 inch ones I picked up at some thrift store. Half of the dolls were in the playhouse and the other half had gone to a concert over by the snowing Christmas tree, or so Alice said. The dolls weren’t ready to go back in the box, when I commanded them to do so – being at the concert and all, said Alice. So I let the girls continue playing with the dolls.

The next time I looked over in that direction, I noticed that the dolls were being baptized by immersion in all of the snow pellets that were waiting to be sucked up the trunk of the tree. I had no idea how many had been buried there when I looked over. I only got some idea when the girls began to scoop them back out.

I just wouldn’t have thought of that kind of creative play when I was young.

Christmas.

The most wonderful time of the year.

Arta