No decorations this holiday, time to improvise

You wouldn't think so, but gift-wrapping ribbon and spent shotgun shells make excellent Christmas decorations.

Decorating a Christmas tree and lighting up the outside of the house has always been a tradition in my family, a task that usually occupied most of a weekend when I was growing up.

I didn't have enough room to put up a Christmas tree when I first went to college, though. I would have tripped over a tree had it been in my dorm room. So I was definitely game for holiday decorating when I lived off-campus my senior year. One of my roommates brought home a tree to put in our living room that December, and we were eager to be as festive as the rest of our neighbors on the block. We just had to find a way to get ourselves some decorations.

We didn't have many ornaments of our own, so we did the next best thing and got out our power tools to make ornaments with what we had. My roommate, Benj, was an avid hunter, and saved up some of his spent shotgun shells from waterfowl season. One of our parents also was able to give us assorted colors of gift-wrapping ribbon for our task.

With these ingredients we were able to make ourselves plenty of ornaments after drilling holes in the spent shells and hanging them by the ribbons. Benj, along my other roommate, Drew, and I spent a Saturday decorating that tree with mostly lights and those shotgun shell ornaments.

Not to leave our decorating task undone, we also made a star out of duct tape. The top of the tree sagged a little bit because of the weight of several layers of duct tape around the star, but our first Christmas tree effort didn't look like too bad a job.

Visitors chuckled the first time the saw the tree in our living room. But deep in their hearts they must have felt a bit jealous that we had the most awesome Christmas tree in Missoula, Mont., that holiday. Some folks gave us ornaments to help diversify the tree, but those shotgun shells with ribbons still reigned supreme.

To decorate the rest of our house, my roommates and I took a more normal route. We used the lighting techniques my father taught me to do our part to light up the block.

We could never compare to the Griswolds at decorating the house when I was growing up, but we never ran into the same trouble they went through either. To steal a line from "Christmas Vacation," my dad taught me everything I know about exterior illumination.

This Christmas season will be the first one that I will have enough room to decorate on my own. My brother and I helped my mom decorate her house for the holidays this past weekend, and my mom let me borrow a few strings of lights to help decorate my apartment.

Mom also offered to let me use a few of the ornaments our family has collected over the years for a tree of my own. After years of collecting the many ornaments both my brother and I made during elementary school, she has more decorations than she needs to fill just one Christmas tree.

I didn't borrow any ornaments from home, but only because I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to put up a tree this Christmas. I do know what's going on top if I do bring home a tree though, I'm all ready to practice making my duct tape stars.