How much is that Christmas tree?

Oh, to have someone else set up your Christmas tree, no expense spared! Visitors to the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi get to enjoy possibly the world's most expensive Christmas tree. It was being set up when I went to visit my friend Paula on Tuesday. The tree itself--artificial--only cost $10,000, but the necklaces and other jewelry adorning the tree bring the price tag up to a whopping $11 million. This is the same 7-star hotel that dispense bars of gold in a vending machine, so I guess its visitors expect a nice tree. For all the cost, though, it did not strike me as over-the-top (that honor is reserved for the Burj Al Arab in Dubai). It was heavy on the gold but in a subdued understated way, and they weren't advertising the expensive jewelry.

I received a nice present upon my return to Pittsburgh when my housesitter Jaye offered to set up our Christmas tree. She probably got the idea after watching me do this last year--selecting the perfect tree, hauling it home on the roof of the car, dragging it through the front door into the living room, trimming the lower branches off, screwing the stump into the base with several attempts needed to straighten out the tree, hearing the tree fall over in the middle of the night as it was tilted too much to one side, dealing with the debris the next morning--all of this no small effort. So this year she found a landscaper who would do it all. When I got home, there it was, all set up and not tilting, ready to be adorned. Best of all, the price was only $89.95, probably less than I paid for the perfect tree last year. A very thoughtful gift. Sometimes it really pays to shop around!