Quest: The Sequel

In case you were wondering what a $10 tree chosen in two minutes in the dark looks like once it's decorated:

Gotta say that to me it looks pretty much the same as a $35 tree that we'd agonized over for an hour would look, if we brought it home and put all our lights and decorations on it. I'm not into "theme trees" (fine in someone else's house, if that's what you like; not in mine). My ideal tree is an eclectic collection of colourful lights and colourful ornaments we've acquired and loved over the years. The colourful lights used to be those old-fashioned glass indoor tree lights, the large ones, because I could never get into mini-lights on an indoor tree. I was finally prepared to consider a change the Christmas before last when the old-fashioned glass lights burned four neat holes in the arm of our couch, which was touching the tree.

Now we have the coloured LED lights, which I think look just as nice but stay cooler and are supposed to be more energy-efficient, so what's not to like about that?