The friendly ghosts of Christmases past...

We had just returned from an epic 2-week road trip to Southern California. We were both in-love with the tree ferns we saw in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and so when I saw a potted tree fern at a local nursery I grabbed it. I'm happy to say that same tree fern (a Dicksonia antarctica) is still live and doing well. I can't say the same for the Agave attenuata and cordyline though...
The 2009 mantel—these first few photos are small because it was the early days of my digital camera and the blog, photo quality is pretty poor.
2010

The Christmas "tree" is a branch, windfall from around the neighborhood.
The mantel looks so sparse.
2011 

The vintage aluminum Christmas tree is called into action.
Equal billing was giving to some Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca' (blue atlas cedar) branches that I'd picked up. I was crushing hard on the idea of a blue atlas cedar Christmas tree.
The 2011 mantel.
There was more eucalyptus on the mantel.
The mantel was done up rather dramatically.
2014 

I got a bee in my bonnet to make a tree with a tomato cage and foraged branches. I called the result Cousin Itt, and with good reason...
The mantel display made use of the left over foraged blue atlas cedar branches.

So much red! It makes me a little uncomfortable to look at it now.
2016 

The blue atlas cedar is back inside and pulling Christmas tree duty.
It was also the year bottle brush trees came back into style and I purchased several (far right on the mantel).
2017 

The year of the opuntia Christmas tree. The year I reached my zenith for inventive trees, like a high school football quarterback or prom queen who never can quite top that year of high school fame.
Okay I kid, obviously I've moved beyond that 10 seconds of spiky fame, but still, it was pretty amazing.
2018 

The last time the potted blue atlas cedar will make an appearance, as spring of 2019 I gave it to a friend who has the room to plant it in the ground. It served us well for 5 years in pot and deserved to finally stretch its roots.
The mantle that year...
2019

The vintage tinsel tree came out again.
A holiday protea is always a good thing.
Naturally there were bromeliads.
2021 

Hurts my heart to think about Christmas 2021. We were supposed to be in Spokane with my family for the holiday, but one of my brothers had COVID and we postponed our family gathering until February. Little did we know at the time it would be my dad's last Christmas. That year I'd decided none of my vintage glass ornaments were to go on the tree, just tillandsia and a big red garland.
I splurged on Leucadendron argenteum branches and bright red berries.