The Saga of the Christmas Tree

While in quarantine, I became well acquainted with Taobao (Chinese Amazon) because I needed some Christmas decorations. Taobao has a lifesaving feature for me:  you can search by photograph.  That means that I can find whatever I want on Amazon, then use the search-by-photo feature and find that same item on Taobao.  Sweet.  I don't have to do too much translating.  Wonderful feature.  Works well.  Semi-mostly. (I'm starting to sound Chinese.) Remember this is China and what you see is not what you get.    

Case in point:  my Christmas tree.  I ordered  a 7ft (2.1m) prelit tree.  This image looks *exactly* like the picture I found on Amazon.

Here is what arrived: 

As it turns out, it wasn't prelit, but it did come with two strands of 100 lights.  Nice.

What to do other than get back on Taobao and order some lights and a heck of a lot more garnishings than I had because there are enough gaps to throw a cat through this tree...

I waited patiently for my lights to arrive.  When a message arrived saying they had been delivered, they weren't anywhere to be found.  Tom showed me how to look up on the map where things came from and guess what....they were delivered.  Down by Hong Kong.  

So back to Taobao I went.  After several screenshots and going back and forth to the translator, I figured out how to apply for a refund and I ordered myself some new lights from a different vendor.  

Meanwhile I watched a self-help video on YouTube on how to decorate a sparse tree.  The brilliant solution was to wrap some pine garland around the trunk.  So I got Taobao to also send me some pine garland.  It helped tremendously!

Then.  I kid you not.  The second light set was delivered to the wrong place too. (If it was to the same recipient, they must be very perplexed!) So me, and the screenshots, and translator got all cozy again and I had a lovely half-English-half-Chinese conversation with the vendor who got some new ones on the way to me.  

Three days later they arrived.  But look at these lights....  500 lights on that little reel.  The wire is floral wire and the lights are the size of tear drops.  I wasn't going to try again. So I wired them to my tree, nice and tight.  

Those 500 little lights covered 1/3 of the tree....

So back to Taobao I went. I made sure to chat with the same vendor friend to ensure the next set of lights were coming to the right place and that I got the same lights so they matched....  I'm learning all too quickly that things can go very very wrong here!  

Meanwhile I tried to figure out how to get rid of the terrible stench that the tree put off.  Before it ever made its appearance in the main room, it hung out in the sun room with the window open for several days.  That seemed to help air it out some, but when we got it out to the main room, it turns out I still couldn't stand the smell so *something* had to be done.  After exploring dead ends for potpourri warmers, mini crockpots, incense burners etc, I had the brilliant idea of portable Febreze!  Thankfully, they were available on Taobao for only ¥42 (often, it's highway robbery for US products over here...).  They only came in the scents of lavender and citrus, but I won't complain about those limitations!  (Even if the citrus smells like a cover up for a dirty bathroom at a rest stop, it beats the reek that was!)

When the next set of lights arrived, I got them all tightly wired on, only to realize that I will be unable to keep the lights on and box the tree back up.  Such is my life!!

Thanks to the years of tutoring by the master Christmas tree decorator and my dear friend Julie, we were able to make this sad tree much more happy.  Greta had picked the color scheme, one my mom loved.  She and I ordered a bunch of textures, sizes and shapes.  Then she and I made picks of pine cones and ornament triplets.  I'm so happy with how it finally turned out.  My whole goal in going to all the effort and expense is to share the joy of Christmas with Chinese people.  We are planning a Christmas day open house like Carolyn used to host to share the light of Jesus Christ with others.  (Pray for us that Covid doesn't shut us down....)

In the beginning of tree ordering and decoration purchasing, I was priding myself for getting a prelit tree AND ornaments for the same price as a prelit tree off of Amazon.  Turns out I got way different bragging rights than those.  Tom probably wishes I were more like Charlie Brown.  A single red ornament would have been much cheaper and come with fewer headaches.  But he's got me instead.  Such is his life!

After all of this, I am NOT.  I repeat NOT looking forward to Christmas shopping!  Oh well.  That's our lot here in China!  Get back on the horse and make it happen, Darcee.