Object Post; Master Perry's Christmas Tree

The object in this post is a living tree. Not many of the objects in object posts are alive, but this is one of a few exceptions. It's portable, and unique, so I expect that makes it an object.

Where: In The Pear Tree pub

A live Christmas tree stood in the corner between a large fireplace, unlit at present, and a table for two. It was hung with painted wooden ornaments.

She looked it over, impressed and admiring. The tree wasn’t a traditional fir or spruce. It was a pear tree, clad in healthy green leaves. It was fruiting, though at this season the pears were small, green and hard. That wasn’t the most striking feature, though. The tree, as she’d noted from the doorway, was strung with wooden ornaments.

Nelis put out her hand to touch one, admiring the miniature detail. It was half the height of her smallest finger, a black swan with a red bill and a touch of white in the wings. There was another close by, and another… Nelis traced the line of swans around the tree. There were seven of them, mixed black and white.

Above was a similar chain of six white geese.

Nelis bent to look at the lowest chain, which featured twelve drummers with their instruments. She was enchanted to see each was different. The drummers ranged from an old man with a white beard in breeches to a child of ten or so dressed in a full smock. The nine dancing ladies were similarly different, some buxom, some slender, some gowned and some not. The gold rings were differently styles, and the milkmaids’ cows all fantastically patched and stippled and oddly small. Nelis got on her toes to look at the topper which was a bird holding a pear in its wings.

That must be the partridge in the pear tree.

Each little piece was lovingly crafted and painted and Nelis saw at a glance they couldn’t possibly be a mass-produced set.