Christmas Tree! Oh, Christmas Tree!

The elementary school my daughter attends holds an auction every year. The bidding is always fast and furious on the class art projects, as parents want something that their child helped create. When my daughter was in pre-kindergarten, I offered to do a quilt with the class. I thought it would be a one-time thing. I was wrong. People so enjoyed that first quilt that I have done one for each auction after that -- kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade.

But last year, 3rd grade, I was out of ideas and out of time. I had spent the previous months working on the aquarium quilt, which was a special project for the school.

I had considered doing no quilt at all. This was not a popular decision. So I simply offered my services to do a custom quilt for the winner. And that is how I came to be flummoxed by the Christmas tree.

The winning parent asked me to recreate a Christmas scene from her childhood. She provided all the details, pictures, everything. I was really looking forward to getting started.
I started with the keepsake photo she lent me (center pic) and I took some pictures of her children.

I Photoshopped them all together, enlarged it, and was very pleased with my template.

And that's when I realized I had a problem -- I don't know how to make a Christmas tree. Any child can make a tree out of a triangle, or several triangles stacked on each other for the super-deluxe version, but that wasn't the look we were after. What to do? Possible resolution to come...