The Frugal Girl

cheerfully living on less

Our blue tree (plus three winners)

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Inside today’s post: winners from all three of the recent giveaways I’ve had, plus I’m gonna show you what we did with our blue Christmas tree!

blue christmas tree

Cookie-guessing answers

We’ll start with this since you are probably on pins and needles the most about this winner.

Here are all the correct answers:

2020 cookie guessing contest answers

Lisey loves Sesame Street, which you might know if you follow me on Instagram, so I thought that one might be easy to guess.

And I thought Sonia’s might be easy to guess because her cookie had such an emphasis on fashion (which is right in line with how Sonia operates in her life!)

DarleneH was the first one to guess the correct order of the cookie artists. Darlene, you’ve been emailed.

Thanks for playing along with us; we always have so much fun making cookies to try to stump you all. : )

Novica and Third Day Naturals giveaway winners (plus discount codes for all of you!)

Carol H won the Third Day Naturals giveaway and Jennifer (commenter #49) won the Novica giveaway. Carol and Jennifer, congrats!

(You’ve both been emailed.)

Third Day Naturals 20% discount

Use code FRUGALGIRL20 when you shop at Third Day Naturals and you’ll get 20% off your purchase.

Novica $7 discount

If you are new to Novica, you can get $7 off your first purchase. Just click the graphic below and use the code SAVE7NOW.


Use code SAVE7NOW to save $7 off your fist purchase!

So, about our blue tree…

You know how I told you we bought a blue Christmas tree?

blue christmas tree

Well. It was Lisey’s idea.

She really loves Sesame Street characters; in fact, she wears Sesame Street socks to her job at Valvoline.

(Everyone knows that you can change oil better in Big Bird socks.)

Her boss at work obviously knows she loves Sesame Street, so he showed her a picture of a Cookie Monster tree.

She texted it to me from work, and within 15 minutes, we’d all approved of the idea and I had a blue tree in my cart from Wayfair. ;)

Lisey with a blue tree

We have never had a fake tree before, and when we opened this one up, we were a little shocked at how scrawny the branches were.

blue Wayfair Christmas tree

And then we realized, duh! You have to fan out the branches.

Lisey and Sonia with a blue Christmas tree

The fluffing REALLY helped.

We added lights, a hat, eyes, and a mouth, and we were all set.

How to make a Cookie Monster Christmas tree

For the eyes, I bought white styrofoam balls and then I used self-adhesive black felt to make the eyeballs.

Cookie Monster Christmas tree eyeballs

The mouth is made of foam board, and at first, I couldn’t think how I was going to sketch a symmetrical shape for the mouth. None of our compasses expand far enough for that!

So I looked around the house for a big circle and I spied the bowl of our usual Christmas tree base. That worked great.

How to make a Cookie Monster Christmas tree mouth

We did have to buy some new lights because all of our Christmas lights have a green cord, which looked super weird on a blue tree.

So we used two strings of these LED lights. 

Since they’re LEDs, and since the tree is fake, it’s no biggie to leave them on all day. Which is nice on a dark December day!

Cookie Monster blue Christmas tree

Zoe had the idea to buy a chocolate chip cookie ornament to hang by Cookie Monster’s mouth, so I ordered one from Etsy. It just hasn’t arrived yet.

Will we use this tree again in the future? I don’t know. I might try to sell it to someone else who wants to make a Cookie Monster tree.

But for the moment, this tree is fulfilling Lisey’s Christmas dreams, and that’s worth it to me even if we only use it for one season.

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  6. Reese Johnston says

    I believe the world needs, “Ways to Decorate a Blue Tree for Christmas” posts. This could be a fun challenge each year. I mean… isn’t there a blue telly tubby? (Is that what they’re called?) or a blue daddy shark? Or… something similar? ;) GROVER IS BLUE.

    Reply

  7. N says

    Fake trees for the win! We had to replace the lights on our tree this year, but otherwise, it’s still going strong and looking great 5+ years on. The tree, itself, is 4′ tall; it’s 6′ tall if you count the weighted faux-pot base, which has proven cat-proof like we hoped. The passage of time has left us with only one cat, and he thankfully isn’t interested in munching on the bottom-most branches like his siblings were. All the glass ornaments still go on the top 2/3, though! :P

    I think you should keep the blue tree and think of different themes for it every year, but that’s just me. :) Blue lends itself to fairies, unicorns, gnomes, pink flamingos, waves, night sky/constellations–whatever you want it to be!

    Reply

  8. Kris says

    OK, that’s just stinkin’ funny. I love how happy Lisey looks. A Cookie Monster tree seems seasonless to me–will he be sticking around for awhile???

    I figured I was right on the Sonia (fashion) and Kristen (phone) cookies. My daughter liked Peppa Pig best and my personal fave was Big Bird. Thanks for giving us some laughter.

    BTW, your family is obsessed with putting eyeballs on things ….

    Reply

  9. KimN says

    I spent a long time trying to analyze each cookie and logically think through whose was whose and I got every one wrong . I love the Cookie Monster tree! We switched to fake trees 10 years ago when our last real one fell over two different times. It broke several of my grandmas antique ornaments and all the water drained deep into the carpet and smelled for ages (it fell over on the middle of the night of course). I loved real trees but the fake ones certainly have their advantages.

    Reply

    • Kristen says

      I have to say, I do really appreciate not having to water this one!

      And I actually like that it’s not pre-lit because I think this way, it’ll have a longer useful life (even if I sell it.)

      Reply

      • KimN says

        Our fake tree came prelit and a few years ago the lights started dying in places. We ended up cutting out all the lights and restringing it with new lights. It was a total pain and took forever but the tree was just fine so we didn’t want to get rid of it. So I would definitely agree that it is better it did not come prelit lol.

        Reply

  11. Jennifer Scorza says

    This is amazing–I love it so much! Both the tree, and your willingness as a mom to go for it! What great memories you are creating for your family.

    Reply

  13. JD says

    I have kept my losing record intact! I think I got one cookie right this year, and if I’m not mistaken, that beats last year’s guess :).

    I never would have a guessed Cookie Monster tree, either, but that is so cute. I’ve seen more unusual trees this year — maybe with the pandemic, people just want to have something different this year?

    One year when I was a kid, we hung real, decorated cookies, popcorn strings and candy canes on the tree. It looked so cute and homespun, but it didn’t take long to realize our dog was enjoying it, too. Luckily she was a tiny chihuahua mix, so we just had to move all of the lowest decorations about a foot higher on the tree.

    Reply

    • JD says

      Meant to add, Kristen, do you not remember the trick in which you tie a string on a pencil and hold the other string end in place with your finger while you pull the pencil across the paper in a circle or half-circle at the full reach of the string? That was always our method for big circles or half-circles.

      Reply

      • WilliamB says

        Here’s a bad idea for that: spray paint the blue tree yellow.

        Now that I’m thinking about it, here’s a better idea: spray paint one small branch yellow and see how it looks.

        Here’s another bad idea: for the wings, maybe you can take some branches from the under-wing area (about 1/2 way down?) and affix them to branches higher up so they stick out like wings???

        Reply

          • WilliamB says

            Hmm. You need color around something long and skinny. For the long and skinny: long tubes (wrapping paper tubes?), dowels, or tree branches. For the color: tissue paper or paint.

            Just some ideas. I find often that good ideas come from discussions about bad ideas.

  15. Suz says

    Love it! Who would have guessed how friendly a Christmas tree can look with eyeballs.

    We went with a fake tree a few years back because of allergies – I didn’t think I’d love it but I do. We got a tall slim “pencil” tree and just decided to enjoy its Dr. Seuss-ness, rather than trying to find the perfect natural looking tree.

    I think the only potential issue with a Cookie Monster tree is that I might end up eating more cookies. (Just me?)

    Reply

    • Kris says

      I’ve had a pencil tree since my single girl days in an apartment and I still love it. I appreciate the height of it without having the darn thing take up half of my living room. Never got a complaint from my kids about it so we have never “upgraded”. With both of them in highschool now, I doubt I ever will.

      Reply

  16. Darlene H says

    Hi Kristen:) Oh my gosh—thank you so much! I tried to email you, but there’s some sort of glitch. My husband did some sort of work around, but I’m not that tech savy. I’ll send you an email from my work computer and give you a good email address.
    What a fun idea for a Christmas tree—it’s adorable! :)

    Reply

  17. Molly F.C. says

    Yep. Struck out again with the cookie guessing! :)

    Love the tree. Kudos to you for letting Lisey have her tree. It’s darling!

    Reply

  20. Jaybee Martin says

    Shoot! I only got 2 out 5, but it was so much fun to guess. Shout out to Lisey and the Cookie Monster tree. It is adorable!!! Me love Cookie.

    Reply

  21. EngineerMom says

    Maybe Lisey will keep the tree for her first home!

    What a fun idea, I love it! And what a great idea for a family with small children or pets who would otherwise damage ornaments.

    Reply

  23. CarolineRSA says

    My husband is a mechanic, and he favours Animal and The Swedish Chef. It’s a Jim Henson thing… we non-technical folk obviously don’t get it…
    Congratulations to the winners! One of these years, I’m going to get it right.

    Reply

  24. Maureen says

    Just have to say that this is awesome. Definitely made my day as I would never do something like a blue tree. My husband would never allow it. But I love it. I am definitely grinning about it.

    Oh and I guess Sonia’s and Mr. FG cookies right off the bat. I knew Sonia’s would be about clothes and Mr. FG is the only one who works/worked/will eventually be in an office that would know about ugly Christmas sweaters (not that he owns one, right?)

    Reply

  25. Kristin says

    Awesome! We did a Darth Vader tree one year with the mask and cape of a Halloween Costume. It was so easy – I didn’t have a lot of time to decorate that year.

    Reply
The Frugal Girl - Cheerfully Living on Less