City folk typically have one thing in common. Lack of space. So for those who celebrate Christmas, but don’t want to sacrifice the tradition of having a tree, my goal was to come up with a solution that wouldn’t interfere with precious living space.

I enlisted my friend Linda to help, a fellow Jew naturally, and the two of us set out to find that perfect urban size Christmas holiday tree.

After debating what kind of tree it should be (to my surprise there were many species to choose from) we decided on this cute Charlie Brown-like fir.

Along with the compact size, another appealing factor was not “killing” a tree. Since it was potted, I could use it on the porch or plant it after the holiday season – tree hugger moment.

So the next part was to find an appropriate (aka stylish) container for it. You didn’t think I would just leave it in this red plastic thing, did you? Just checking.

I searched high and low for an urn and found one at a local wholesale floral shop.

It did not have drainage and since big red did not fit in the new planter, I had to remove the tree to relocate it. I decided to do this repotting project in my living room and it did not take long to realize this was a bad idea when most of the dirt dumped on to the floor. Minor mishap.

Before I turned my floor into a garden bed, I found one of those drain plates from another planter and put that on the bottom so the tree would not be sitting in water. Problem solved.

A vacuum, broom and dust pan later, the tree was nicely nestled into its new home. Now time to dress it up and add twinkly lights and ornaments.

I have to admit I do like having a live tree in the house not only for the outdoorsy smell, but it gives me something else to decorate!