Deck the Halls--Brought to You By the Letter U

I have a circle of girlfriends that get together once a month for "Girls' Night Out". Each December, we have an ornament exchange. Last year, we decided our theme for 2008 would be "colors and letters". So we passed around 2 baskets and each person drew a letter of the alphbet from one and a color from the other. For example, I drew "U" and "purple"; so I had to find an ornament that fit that description. We had the whole year to find our ornament. I kept it in the back of my mind, but, a purple U ornament proved harder to find than I first thought. The obvious choice was an umbrella, but not only did I not want to be obvious, I never came across a purple umbrella. I considered painting a horseshoe with glittery purple paint, but decided that a U shape is not the same as the letter U. I was tempted to go with purple underwear, but who wants lingerie on their Christmas tree? (Unless maybe you're a Victoria's Secret model or Playboy bunny...which my friends are not.) So...after much deliberation and brainstorming...I settled on...are you ready...purple sea urchins! The internet is such a wonderful thing. I went online, found a company in Florida, and purchased two real-life purple sea urchins. I embellished them with a tassle, some ribbon and glitter spray. The end result was...interesting. It will probably end up on the back side of someone's tree hidden from view, but that's okay...at least its not underwear!