Secret Santa Christmas Placemat

We have secret Santas at work this year. I decided that, among the other gifts I was giving my "giftee" (recipient, whatever), I wanted to give something quilted. I considered the potholders I've been working on, but I am planning on giving one to each of my team members. It wouldn't be difficult for my giftee to find out and I wouldn't be a "Secret" Santa any more. So I opted for a placemat. I would have liked to do QAYG again, but wanted a Christmas tree block for the main feature of the placemat. So I googled and found this one. This is a 10" block and I wanted a 12" block. I also didn't want my tree to be as wide as it is tall. I wanted a more accurate perspective. So I modified the pattern and here's the result:

I didn't want the standard solid background either. This fabric looks sort of like it could be snowflakes and the lighter colour is actually a metallic silver. I love bling, so anything shiny usually appeals to me and I think is very appropriate for Christmas. I'm not entirely happy with the tree trunk fabric. I should have taken a little more care in selecting that. However, I'm really not a fan of the colour brown, so I have a very limited supply in my stash. I bought a fat eighths bundle for the tree in different shades of green. The Christmas fabric in the sidebars is from my potholder project. The red sashing is the same fabric as the backing.

I chose to use green as my bobbin thread so that it would show up on the red backing. And the binding is a purchased extra wide double fold bias binding that I had in my stash. 
I'd better go for now. Our Christmas potluck is tomorrow and I need to prepare some food.