Oh Tannenbaum...

Christmastime in my growing up always meant bringing home a real Christmas tree. There were the traditional family fights about exactly which tree was the best in the lot, and I remember watching my father scale a four-story evergreen to take "just a bit off the top" and then drag that topping home to the living room. Let me not forget the time when he scaled a particularly sappy pine, saw tucked under his arm as he struggled upwards through the branches, and just out of earshot of the family below - madly gestured that he was ascending the wrong tree. 

But now that we're in the foreign service, we're adapting to different definitions of what a Christmas tree is, or can be. 

Without further ado, I'd like to offer a gallery of our foreign service Christmas trees... thus far:

The Oakwood Apartment's standard-issue fake-ficus-of-Navidad. I added piney aroma sticks to make it seem more Christmasy. I'm not sure anyone's buying it and the leaves keep hiding the ornaments.

FSI's two-story tree covered in the flags of the world - just my style!

ConGen's "Country of Z" traditional purple tree! ("Z" is the  mythical country  we use  in our training.)

"Arbusto de Navidad" (Christmas bush) from Bogota. Actually just a juniper with generally the right shape. For $30 we got it potted and delivered to the door - and it was live!