Orange Slices

By AK Brinson

A few years ago, I fell in love with aluminum Christmas trees. I must admit, at first I was surprised by my love for these gaudy items of holiday cheer.  As a PR practitioner with expertise in furnishings and home décor, I’ve always prided myself on my good taste. A “find your style” quiz from HomeGoods.com proclaimed me an Elegant Classic – someone with a refined sensibility and an appreciation for beauty, things that are well crafted and family heirlooms.

But as soon as I purchased my first opulently blingy aluminum tree, my refined sensibility was discarded faster than Aunt Edna’s fruitcake.  I bought an eye-catching, bright white tree for my house and decked it with ornaments in bold hues of red, green, pink and blue.

And much to the chagrin of my co-workers, I brought a shocking pink tree into the office and filled its branches with ornaments in silver, white and Tiffany blue. This year, I agreed to appease the grinches and set up a smaller aluminum tree (this time in classic green) in the front lobby.

I eventually made peace with my obsession for tacky tannenbaums. They were to be my guilty pleasure, something that would surface once a year to remind me that all that glitters need not be gold. So imagine my surprise when perusing MarthaStewart.com to see a post written by Martha herself about her love for fake, sparkly, colorful aluminum Christmas trees! Oh, the relief! The validation! If the domestic doyenne herself lauded faux fir, I must be doing something right!

The moral of the story is this: To thine own self be true. Build your brand on your strongest assets and proceed steadily in a consistent direction despite the grinches and naysayers. Try to be all things to all people and you’ll likely end up being nothing to anyone. But if you can firmly establish your identity and stick by it, your brand has a much better chance of meaning something to the people who matter.

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