How we made a Yo Gabba Gabba Brobee Christmas tree

If you’ve been here for a little while, you know that we’ve had a string of weird Christmas trees in the last few years. And all of them have been the brainchild of Lisey. 😉

In 2019, we got a big fluffy tree, added huge google eyes, and Lisey named him Clay.

Then in 2020, her boss at work showed her a Cookie Monster Christmas tree someone else had made, and she texted me, “Mom, can we do this??”

So I bought a blue Christmas tree and we made Cookie Monster.

You can read all about that tree adventure here.

For Christmas 2021, Lisey was living with my aunt and uncle, so we did actually have a normal tree. See?

This year, of course, Lisey is back living with me, and in November, she floated the idea of doing a tree that looks like Brobee, a character from YoGabbaGabba.

I was willing, but when I googled to get inspiration from other people who had done this, I came up dry.

(Zoe said, “That’s how you know this is a weird thing to do.” Ha.)

I don’t think there are probably a lot of people who are wanting to make a Brobee Christmas tree, but just in case there are, I thought I’d share how I did it.

Here’s what Brobee looks like when you do a Google image search.

First, I bought a white pine Christmas tree, because it’s fluffy just Brobee.

Then to make the stripes, I bought this green garland. It’s 59 feet long, so we only needed the one strand. Sweet.

I thought red party hats would be perfect for the red things on Brobee’s head, but man, I could not find them anywhere. I tried dollar stores, craft stores, Target, and party stores.

But eventually, I found red megaphones at Party City!

I poked holes in the side with a huge safety pin (which I found in a sewing box I rescued from the abandoned house) and I used wire to string the three megaphones together.

I was really glad I had thought to grab some of my random crafting supplies from my other house because this wire came in very handy.

To make his unibrow, eyes, and mouth, I bought a multipack of posterboard paper from Staples.

I used an oval dish (from Goodwill, funny enough) to trace the shape of his eyes, and then I used a drinking glass (from the abandoned house, funny enough) to trace his eyeballs.

I kind of free-handed the unibrow, and then Lisey and I worked together to make the mouth.

I used wire to attach the unibrow to the tree. Then I attached the mouth to the eyes (with wire) and attached those to the tree as well.

And then we were done!

Once we finished, this tree made me laugh really hard when I looked at it…it is just so ridiculous.

And in between giggles I said to Lisey, “My mom would NEVER have said yes if I suggested this kind of tree.”

(I mean, this sort of tree would never have occured to teenage me, so it’s sort of a moot point. 😉 )

Left to myself as an adult, I would be prone to decorating a tree in a traditional way, but man, Christmas has been hard for my kids for quite a few years now (our first marital separation was in 2018, so things have been rough for a while!)

So, I will say yes to pretty much any off-the-wall thing they want to do at Christmas.

Anyway! That’s the long and short of our 2022 Christmas tree.

And it will be interesting to see if anyone finds this post next year by googling “Brobee Christmas tree”. Ha.

I’ll let you know. 😉

P.S. The Christmas candle carousel I bought is marked down right now. Brief review: I had trouble getting it to spin until I put a small wooden coaster underneath the base area. Also, tea lights weren’t quite tall enough to provide the necessary heat; I used these candles instead.

P.P.S. Knix is my fave brand of washable period undies, and they are having a year-end sale where they are clearing out rather random colors. You can use my code: THEFRUGALGIRL_KNIXLOVE to get an extra $10 off of a $100 purchase. My fave style is the leakproof bikini. You can read a super full review of Knix and Thinx here to help you decide if you want to invest in period underwear.

(Tl;dr: I think my menstrual cup makes more frugal sense than period undies do.)