What’s a creative pursuit without a fiasco? As you may know, my photography style is light and airy. A big dark green mass taking over my creamy neutral images was something I wanted to avoid. A lot of photographers use flocked trees to solve this “problem” and so this year, I decided to dust my Christmas tree with flocking spray. Or with what I thought was flocking spray and was in fact “Snow Spray.”

Did you know there was a difference between flocking spray and Snow Spray? Because I did not.

It turns out that Snow Spray does not stick to Christmas trees and, in fact, smells how one might imagine a nuclear power plant smells. (I have no idea how a nuclear power plant smells. All I know is that there’s no way I’m putting this thing in the same room as children.)

Despite airing the cursed tree out on our terrance, carrying it to our shower at nights, and back out to the balcony, I realized that this was beyond a work fiasco and was now rapidly turning into a marital fiasco. I was informed by my best friend, supporter of all my ambitions, and appointed carrier of the cursed tree that if I want to stay married to him, I must forgo all dreams of a fluffy white Christmas tree this year and all years to follow.

Thankfully our very sweet upstairs neighbors gifted us their tree when they moved, and I managed to pull off Christmas minis with a perfectly nice tree decorated with white bows and golden baubles. Although, not without a hitch in my Santa Claus plans. The first suit I ordered was not up to par. But it all came together in the end!

(And I’m on the market for a reasonably priced pre-flocked tree for next year, but no one tell my husband!)