Love your tree !
I would love a real tree, if someone else would go get it and set it up ! 😄 OH... and come back after I'm done with it and take it out.
So nice that you have good help. The red and white lights are so nice. One year when I was doing a whimsical tree, I took strings of solid red and solid white and striped them down the tree, not mixed, but actual stripes. It was also pretty neat, but I only did that once.
I like how the 3rd from last photo makes it look like there is a ghost Christmas tree in the woods. The essence of Christmases past.
Oh I bet the candy cane Stripes were beautiful, and I can imagine how much work it was! Putting on the lights was always my least favorite part of decorating a tree. The girls did good with this one.
The past two years I have gotten a small real tree, hoping to have some of the fragrance of Christmas, but I would say that it was negligible and not worth the effort. This year I chose to keep it simple.
I saw one of the facebook shorts (I tried for the longest time not to look at any of them. LOL) .....and it had two guys with a very large artificial tree and all they put on it was white lights and the silver icicles and I LOVED it. I am toying with the idea of cutting a VERY small tree and making a small version of it, like you, to see if I can get some of the wonderful aroma, but also to see if there is any beauty when done the same way, in a very small tree.
When I was growing up, we always had a cedar tree and most times, either some of our extended family or some church friends would let Dad cut one off of their property. As children, we didn't know the difference in how their very fine limb ends weren't perfect for ornaments, so we adored them and the SMELL.... on my was it ever heavenly. Some years I have cut some bits off the ends of some cedars at Mom's, not so you can tell buy looking, but i have put it in an old pot, added water and brought it to a slow simmer on the stove top. It wasn't as strong as it used to be with the hot lights strung on the tree, but there was still some aroma from it. Oh how I love getting a whiff of that !
My daughter is on her way over right now to bring me a yule log that she created that will have fresh Greens on it. It will be the centerpiece on my dining room table. Most likely that will be the only greens that I will have this year. I will simmer some orange peel and cinnamon sticks in a little pot on the stove to get a festive smell in the house.