Ariana Grande’s Christmas Tree Is on Her Ceiling Because “Sometimes Life Just Be Upside Down”
2018 hasn’t been the easiest year for Ariana Grande, but the pop singer is still taking the time to find the fun in the holiday season. Grande shared a photo of her Christmas tree on Instagram Tuesday—and it’s casually dangling from the ceiling in her condo, in a Zaha Hadid–designed building, with a row of black stockings hanging from a nearby mantel and a handful of goth candlesticks lining the top of it. Her brother, Frankie Grande, shared a slightly brighter version of the photo to IG that same day, revealing a cluster of presents gathered “under” the tree and a smaller, right-side-up tree sitting on the ground below. Any Grande fan worth their salt (or, sweetener) will recognize the Christmas tree as just another element of her fascination with all things upside-down: Earlier this year, she released her fourth studio album, Sweetener, which features the singer’s face on the cover, but upside down. The music video for her first single off the album, “No Tears Left to Cry,” also has the pop star walking effortlessly from the walls onto the ceiling for an equally disorienting effect. When asked about her decision to have an upside-down tree in her home, Grande told photographers, simply, “Sometimes life just be upside down.”
But that got us thinking: Is an upside-down Christmas tree all that unusual? As it turns out, while they’re still a rare sight, they aren’t entirely without precedence. The upside-down Christmas tree is common in Central and Eastern Europe because they’re understood to be a symbol of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. Aesthetically speaking, a Twitter user who claimed to have written for the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog said that the trees are a popular item around the holidays because “apparently people like them because they better showcase the ornaments (i.e. they don’t hang down & get lost in bushy lower branches).” Maybe he or she is onto something? Target and other retailers currently sell upside-down Christmas trees for anywhere from $285.99 to $1,041.28. Other celebrities have been sharing their own takes on trees on social media, and while Bethenny Frankel’s bubblegum-pink creation is an eye-catcher, we still give it to Grande for the season’s most unique take on the Christmas tree.
Related: Making the Christmas Tree Modern
