"Corny" Christmas Tree

"Corny" Christmas Tree FARM HOME Miscellaneous 24-6-44 Every year when it's time to trim the Christmas tree, Sarah Morgan of Vestavia Hills, Alabama, starts collecting all her ornaments. However, these ornaments aren't what you might normally expect û they all have a common theme, and it's corn. She calls them "cornaments". Morgan's "corny" Christmas tree is decorated with lights in the shape of corn, strings of popcorn, corn husk dolls, yellow and green ears of corn made from pottery, seed corn key chains, and anything else she can find that's "corny". At the top of the tree, instead of an angel you'll find small ears of Indian corn along with their husks. Plastic life form food replicas that hang from the tree show whole kernels of canned corn as they would appear if heaped on a dinner plate. There are corn cob pigs made by her father, as well as corn-on-the-cob holders hung on gold threads. Sitting at the base of the tree is a teddy bear and a pig, both made out of seed corn sacks. Even the tree skirt is made from corn fabric. "It's a lot of fun to decorate and fun to look at," says Morgan. "I've collected corn ornaments for years. My family is still in Iowa. "I get ornaments from a variety of sources. I bought the corn lights from Partylights.com (4317 Montrose Blvd., Houston, Texas 77006; fax 713 529-0181; Website: www.partylights.com. A 12-ft. strand has 10 ears of 4-in. high corn lights on it and sells for $12.95). "I also write to seed corn companies and get their catalogs to order things such as corn-shaped cookie cutters. I got some of my ideas from members of the Corn Items Collectors Association (Lloyd Mitchell, 40 North 33rd Road, Peru, Ill. 61354 ph 815 223-8935). For example, I bought the seed company key chains from a member of the club. Teddy bears and pigs made out of seed corn sacks are available from Mid-State Bears (Box 542, Ladd, Ill. 61329 ph 815 223-8935). "I'm a clinical nutritionist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and use diet food models in my work, which is how I knew about the life form food replicas." (NASCO, 901 Janesville Ave, Fort Atkinson, Wis. 53538 ph 800 558-9595; E-mail: info@enasco.com; Website: www.enasco.com). The pottery corn ears are sold by Sunflower Pottery, 604 Franklin, Pella, Iowa 50219 ph 515 628-8369. Sarah Morgan's E-mail address is: morgans@shrp.uab.edu.

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