Miracle on Pleasant Street (part II)

Previously on Petula Darling:
We learned that Petula has a long history of becoming overwrought while gathering the annual Christmas tree. She also has an annoying tendency to sing narcissistic rewrites of songs. A pledge was made stating that she will never go out tree plucking again, but, alas, no such promise was made about the singing.

So what were we going to do about the following Christmas? To be honest, I was just planning on going to one of those makeshift tree stands that get set up in supermarket parking lots. Maine is known as "The Pine Tree State", so fake trees are something of an anathema. Then lo and behold...

It was little after Christmas last year; I was siting on the couch gazing at our less-than-spectacular looking tree. I decided to put off doing any post-holiday cleanup in favor of remaining on my butt and surfing the internet. Ahh, excellent, the holiday aprons were finally up over at Tie One On, so I settled down for a long winter's procrastination. And look at what I found:

Mary, from My House is Cuter Than Yours, had submitted this amazing photo of her handmade apron. Not only was I bowled over by her incredible photo-styling (and, of course, the great apron), but look at that tree! I had never seen such a fabulous thing. After adding her blog to my bookmarks and perusing its archives (something I highly recommend - so much kitschy goodness!), I set out to find a tree like that.
I googled every combination of terms I could think of (fake trees, artificial trees, vintage trees, feather trees, fluffy fabulous white trees) for much of the year, but I couldn't find anything like it. I came to the conclusion that it was one of her amazing vintage finds, and, since there were probably only three of them left in existence, I should just give up the dream. I decided to write a post about my failed quest, and I wrote to her asking for permission to use the photo. "The white tree?" she asked. "That tree is from Kmart."
Ha! Turns out it's from the Martha Stewart collection and it's called a "Snowbird Mountain Tree" (I will admit that's a term that I neglected to use in my googling). I renewed my quest with great fervor. Kmart was sold out, so I turned to eBay. Once again, the online auction house came to my rescue - I won an auction for one and it just arrived. Yay!