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Oh, so many tannenbaums
» Tree tips
• Putting up multiple trees allows you to do a themed tree — such as one decorated in a single color or with a special ornament collection — while still having a general tree with all the "it just wouldn't be Christmas without it" ornaments your family probably has stashed away.
• A themed tree also is a great way to start your Christmas ornament collection.
• Both Charlotte Honeycutt and Frankie Paulus use artificial trees for practical reasons. Many of Honeycutt's ornaments weigh too much for a real tree to support (and she has to wire some branches together even on her artificial trees).
• Smaller artificial trees can be stored with their decorations intact at the end of each Christmas season. Paulus usually just needs to tweak her little trees when she gets them out.
• Honeycutt brings in fresh greenery to supply the fragrance of a real tree.
• Many ornament makers offer special annual decorations that encourage the budding Christmas devotee to start a collection. Honeycutt shops for hers online at eBay, as well as at local and online retailers.
• Honeycutt also collects ornaments that have special meanings for her family. For example, the year her boys dressed as Batman and Robin for Halloween, she added the caped crusaders to one of her trees.
• If you're going to go to the effort of putting up multiple trees, you might as well enjoy them as long as possible. Both Honeycutt and Paulus put their trees up right after Thanksgiving; Honeycutt tends to leave hers up until well into January.
The thing about people who really, really love Christmas is that they don't know when — or maybe how — to quit.
Take Frankie Paulus. Every year, the Tucson artist and grandmother puts up more than a dozen Christmas trees in and around her Foothills home.
There are stark white trees in the entryway patio, a traditional 9-footer reaching toward the ceiling in her dining area, a 7-foot model in the cozy den, and assorted little trees scattered through the rest of the house. Even the laundry room sports its own tree, while the gourmet kitchen offers her "tacky tree" — 3 feet tall with a purple garland, Red Hat ornaments and a string of chile pepper lights.
Then there's Charlotte Honeycutt. The mother of two initially acknowledged putting up three trees each season. But the real total is more like five themed trees — one new this year — and an indeterminate number of more casually decorated pines and firs that Honeycutt describes as "just around" the house.
The two women, both members of Catalina Foothills Church, take different routes to a similar result — a home that spreads Christmas cheer anywhere and everywhere the lucky visitor looks.
"I've always been a Christmas nut," Paulus happily confesses. She's a painter and multimedia artist who is likely to use her brush to transform a box of inexpensive gold balls into one-of-a-kind decorations.
The mother of three and grandmother of seven began her hobby at least 35 years ago. When her children were young, she and her now-deceased husband took them to a tree farm in their native Georgia to cut each year's tannenbaum. When her elder son — who is now an F-16 pilot — was small, she emptied and painted eggshells to decorate a tree (he knocked it over).
The stately 9-footer that graces the dining room with traditional glass balls and gold ribbon was bought back home in Georgia after the family purchased a century-old farmhouse. Paulus took one look at the house's 12-foot ceilings and went out to buy the 9-foot artificial tree for it.
When Paulus moved to Tucson in 2001, then bought her current home two years ago, her major criteria were that the new digs have room for that tree and her grand piano.
This Christmas, she already painted a box of ornaments in the distinctive style of MacKenzie-Childs, a home-furnishings chain known for its distinctive — and pricey — line of furniture and ornaments that combine black-and-white geometrics with brightly colored florals.
"I'm not going to pay $35 apiece for Christmas ornaments," Paulus reported.
Honeycutt began her Christmas career as an ornament collector, a hobby that requires various themed trees to display it all.
She said it started innocently enough in 1982 when her stepmother, who managed a Hallmark store, gave the high school student the first part of what has grown into a huge, valuable ornament collection.
"Every year I got a few ornaments, and she gave me a few ornaments. It evolved into a 9 1/2-foot-tall Christmas tree," Honeycutt said.
That tree looks like something you might find in an old-fashioned department-store window. With a press of a button, the lights and music come on, and ornaments begin moving: a train, Santa Claus and reindeer circling a chimney, and other fun things.
"I love bringing little kids over to look at it," she said. "They push the button and it's magical, and it comes to life."
Another of Honeycutt's trees provides more than fun. Her "Jesse tree" helps focus family religious devotions during the pre-Christmas Advent season.
These trees are a popular project at local churches — each of a group of 25 (usually) women is assigned responsibility for making 25 identical ornaments that deal with the theme of a given day from Dec. 1 through 25, from the biblical story of Creation to the Nativity. The group exchanges the ornaments, and each member takes home a complete set. Each day, one ornament goes on the tree, accompanied by readings and prayers.
Honeycutt has organized many Jesse trees, so she has many sets of the ornaments — enough to require a newer, bigger tree just for them this year.
Neither woman sees any end in sight. Honeycutt continues to add several ornaments to her collection every year and is launching a new "Twelve Days of Christmas"-themed tree this year.
Paulus is plotting new things to decorate. "As long as I'm able, I probably will keep doing this," she said.
» Tree tips
• Putting up multiple trees allows you to do a themed tree — such as one decorated in a single color or with a special ornament collection — while still having a general tree with all the "it just wouldn't be Christmas without it" ornaments your family probably has stashed away.
• A themed tree also is a great way to start your Christmas ornament collection.
• Both Charlotte Honeycutt and Frankie Paulus use artificial trees for practical reasons. Many of Honeycutt's ornaments weigh too much for a real tree to support (and she has to wire some branches together even on her artificial trees).
• Smaller artificial trees can be stored with their decorations intact at the end of each Christmas season. Paulus usually just needs to tweak her little trees when she gets them out.
• Honeycutt brings in fresh greenery to supply the fragrance of a real tree.
• Many ornament makers offer special annual decorations that encourage the budding Christmas devotee to start a collection. Honeycutt shops for hers online at eBay, as well as at local and online retailers.
• Honeycutt also collects ornaments that have special meanings for her family. For example, the year her boys dressed as Batman and Robin for Halloween, she added the caped crusaders to one of her trees.
• If you're going to go to the effort of putting up multiple trees, you might as well enjoy them as long as possible. Both Honeycutt and Paulus put their trees up right after Thanksgiving; Honeycutt tends to leave hers up until well into January.
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