New Frontiers in Christmas Decor

This . . .


was at the ex-job yesterday. The flash washed out the purple lights, so this isn't quite how it really looked (I've tried to compensate by turning down the green a little), but perhaps you get the idea anyway. It was very, y'know, striking, so I said so to a former co-worker, who was all like, "oh, yeah, the hooker tree." And then there was a discussion with her and another employee about whether "hooker" was appropriate or not. (The other employee pointed out that we had no reason to think that the tree actually slept around -- all we actually know about it is that it has flamboyant tastes -- and said she preferred "burlesque Christmas tree." I like "burlesque" better too. And I'm pretty sure I now like the other employee, who I'd not previously met.)

You know you're having a nice day when you get to talk about whether or not an artificial Christmas tree is slutty.

For my part, I was initially horrified, but the more I look at it, the more I think it's one of those so-wrong-it's-cool things. Your mileage will vary.

In more houseplant-relevant Christmas merch, we have this:


Poinsettias don't fall apart and die fast enough on their own, so we have to speed it up by sticking them in tiny, no-drain spherical pots full of sopping wet peat. The wooden sticks don't seem to serve any useful purpose; they read "http://www.optimara.info" on one side, but that address goes to a page displaying African violet varieties (which, judging by the page's formatting, was last updated in 2001) and "easyGrowing...easyCare" on the other, none of which is true. Unless the ellipsis stands in for missing words, like:

easyGrowing is not at all what this plant is, even under ideal circumstances, nor are there any imaginable circumstances under which this plant, as it is currently being grown, could be construed to be easyCare

In that case, then the ellipsis, at least, might be true.

This, I think, is just kind of self-evidently horrible and wrong, but everything involving poinsettias tends to strike me as horrible and wrong, so whatever. I'm not sure what could possibly happen to launch these poinsettia-balls into so-revolting-it's-awesome territory (Glitter? Bows? Plastic neon bows covered in glitter? Artificial ivy spilling out of the bottom? Little metal stars bobbing above the plant on springs? Plastic neon glitter-covered bows on springs? Spray-paint? LEDs around the inside rim of the pot? Plastic neon stars encrusted with blinking LEDs, on bobbing springs, with a tiny mechanical Santa walking in circles through the artificial ivy spilling out of the glitter-covered metallic-painted spherical pot?), but I enjoyed thinking about the possibilities.