Someone turned this dead Bluffton tree into holiday cheer. Do you know who did it?

Someone in Bluffton has decorated the ugliest part of a dead tree.

“It started about a week ago, just one big ornament, initially,” said Bannon Law Group’s Christine Towle, who can see it through her office windows. “As the week progressed, it’s gotten to this.”

This.

As of Monday, seven ornaments: five red, one blue and a pink globe sporting snowflakes.

Tinsel, silver and gold.

And today, a new addition: a red-and-green wreath.

All hanging from the skeletal fingers of the downed pine’s root ball, arrayed over the gaping maw left in the ground when the thing fell more than a year ago. A victim of Hurricane Matthew, Towle said. Until now, a spindly eyesore near a hole filled with bits of trash.

“An older gentleman stopped on the side of the road,” said The River Group’s Kathy Hyman, whose office overlooks the traffic circle that connects Westbury Parkway with Plantation Park Drive, beside which the towering tree rests. “It appeared he started the trend by hanging the largest ornament ... .”

That was last Tuesday, Hyman guessed.

More ornaments appeared during the week.

None were added over the weekend, Towle said.

Neither she nor Hyman know who did it, or why.

Neither do officials with Wesbury Park, a nearby community that hasn’t sponsored the effort, according to a staffer who asked to remain anonymous.

Six visits to nearby medical parks, law offices and banks provided no leads.

No confessions.

And, on two occasions, no knowledge of the decor.

Plenty of laughs, though.

Not a pretty pine, but the best it’s looked in a long while.

This story was originally published December 19, 2017 at 2:14 PM with the headline "Someone turned this dead Bluffton tree into holiday cheer. Do you know who did it?."