Taking down our "Easter Tree"

Yesterday, I finally decided to do it - to take down our "Easter Tree".
Easter Tree? Yup. Well, at Christmas, there are Christmas trees, which for us here means freshly cut pine trees that we place in our living room and decorate. Here, in the Netherlands at least (I'm not sure if this is done in other countries), we also have a tradition of Easter Trees. Technically, an Easter tree isn't a real tree; it is just a bundle of willow tree branches which you place in a pot in your living room. You then hang decorations on the willow tree branches. These decorations are mostly miniature easter eggs, or easter bunnies - with the color yellow predominating. Since willow branches start to bud at this time, the small green buds blend quite well with the yellow decorations.

In our case, I planted the willow branches in a pot with soil some years ago. It has grown a bit over the years. Every Easter time, I bring the willow mini-tree into the house, and decorate it. I do this at about Palm Sunday, and then keep it in till one week after Easter - a decent 2 week presence in our living room. My problem this year, was that I was a bit sick when I should have taken the decorations down, so I kept postponing when to do it. And as I procrastinated, the willow's buds became a profusion of leaves. This made it even harder to take the decorations out - the leaves came in the way.