Heritage
After everyone goes
Late, and nothing else is on
Burgundy glass, with gold worked in behind it — colors that only arrive once the lamps are low and the overhead light is off. The tree is narrow, so it lives against a wall or in a corner rather than out in the middle of the floor. At the base there is a dark brown basket weave collar, wide and low, so the floor under it is finished too.
Eleven o’clock is when the room looks like this. The dishwasher is running in the other room, a coat is still over the arm of a chair, and nobody has put the glasses away. You sit down and don’t turn anything else on. It is the corner you end the night looking at.
The tree is a Balsam Hill Silverado Slim. It’s artificial — which is why it looks like this on the twenty-eighth of December, and why there is never anything to sweep. The ornaments are Balsam Hill Signature in burgundy with the Gilded Glory collection. It stands in a dark brown basket weave collar, with a gold mirror star at the top.