Let me be clear, I love real trees for Christmas. I love the smell, the look, the feel. I love and miss the tradition of going to pick one out with my Dad each year, musing over each tree’s personality and imperfections. I even love vacuuming up the needles that inevitably shed all over the carpet. But, now that I have my own home, I’ve found that my desire to decorate or spend money on such things is pretty limited. Trees get expensive and it takes a lot of effort to decorate. While I appreciate when other people decorate, I simply don’t have the interest to devote time to it. I’ve got other things to do! As you can see in the picture above, holidays tend to blend together around here. We still haven’t put away our skeletons from Halloween. 🙃

Before you call me a total Grinch, I came up with a solution that gives us a little bit of holiday cheer without going overboard. I had plywood leftover from my mirror framing project and decided the best use for it was to make a Christmas tree. Obviously.

Now, I really wanted to make it 3D, able to stand on its own, but I didn’t have enough material. Eventually, I’d like to add pegs to it to hang ornaments as well, but for this year this is enough. I like that it’s cute on it’s own, but that it can evolve over time, getting better year after year. Maybe I’ll paint or stain it someday, but right now I like the natural wood look. I made the pom pom garland long ago and I think it adds just enough color and whimsy to keep it from looking bare.

If you’re interested in making your own, it’s terribly simple if you have a little know-how with a jigsaw. I have no real talent when it comes to sketching, but trees aren’t so hard. I had a roll of freezer paper on hand so I used that to draw half of a tree and cut it out to make a stencil. I traced it directly onto the plywood and then flipped it over to trace the other side to make a complete tree. After that, I propped it up on some saw horses and cut it out with a handheld jigsaw.

I think it would be really fun to make a few of these in different sizes and have a little wooden tree forest. I love that each one is unique since they’re hand drawn and cut. What do you think? Are you into real trees, fake trees, or something totally different like this wooden option?