‘Tis the season for making boxwood wreaths, garlands of fresh pine, and of course donning the mangled remains of your professionally landscaped front yard with holiday fairy lights and other whimsical decor.
Are you a traditionalist? Why not adorn the hacked-off stubs of your once majestic crape myrtle with strings of white lights? Really put a lot of them on there and wrap them tightly (think: binding severed limbs with tournequets) then sit back and enjoy the show. Once the sun sets, those twinkly lights will really set off the freakishly stubby quality of your tree, and admiring neighbors will understand that you are a homeowner who is definitely in charge of his landscape, by god! Why, you have the power to transform a beautiful vase-shaped tree into a ridiculous parody of itself!
Black Walnut Dispatch 