There won’t be any broken glass ornaments at Barbara Lacy-Whalen’s house this year. Nor will her 3-year-old son, Jack, get into trouble for playing with the Christmas tree. Not since Ms. Lacy-Whalen’s gone bananas, so to speak, with her holiday tree trimmings.
She decorates the entire tree with sock monkeys in all shapes and sizes. This is her second year with this theme, and she says trading in her traditional blue and silver ornaments has made the tree more fun for her son.
“The best part of it is I’ll walk by it, and my son will have taken one of the monkeys down, and he’ll be playing with it,” Ms. Lacy-Whalen says. “I want him to enjoy it.”
There are quite a few monkeys for him to choose from: a cheerleader, a frog, a cowboy, a sock monkey Santa, a sock monkey wearing sock-monkey socks and even an angel monkey topping off the Fraser fir, not that he could reach it.
Ms. Lacy-Whalen’s inspiration was not Curious George, but rather a whimsical black-and-white art book of sock-monkey photos. With the help of her mother-in-law, Judy Whalen, she has amassed enough monkeys to cover the tree. She’s also got a couple peeking out from the family stockings, which are made from red-heeled wool socks found at an antique store.
Interspersed among the monkeys on the tree are red yarn pom-poms that Ms. Lacy-Whalen made, and a soft rope garland with colors to match the sock monkeys. The overall effect is surprisingly festive, with all the big red monkey smiles standing out against the green tree.
Ms. Lacy-Whalen says that eventually she’ll change to another theme, perhaps when Jack starts making his own homemade ornaments, but until then, this approach works well, start to finish.
“It’s so easy to put it all away at the end of the season. It only takes an hour,” Ms. Lacy-Whalen says. “You just throw them in a box and you’re done.”
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