Decorating the Tree

It never really seems like Christmas to me until we decorate the tree.  When I was growing up, the tree never went up until 7 days before Christmas.  Period!  No exceptions!  EVER!

Even after we went to an artificial tree.  Still only one week before Christmas.  

When I moved out, the first purchase I made for my new apartment was an artificial Christmas Tree and one set of fancy, smanchy, twinkling lights.  (This was back in 1972!)  That year, I put my tree up TWO weeks before Christmas!  After all, I was an adult and could do what I wanted!

After kids came along, we had a new wrinkle in our plans.  Often, we were not at home for Christmas.  We were in the army and only had one vacation a year.  So, we usually spent the Christmas break at both parent's house.  One in Missouri and one in Georgia.

Being gone for a month really put a cramp in the whole tree thing.  If I put it up before we left, I had to take it down when we got back.  Not much fun!

Then when my oldest daughter was born exactly three weeks before Christmas, a whole new wrinkle was put into the mix.  She wanted her birthday and Christmas to be completely separated, so no Christmas decorations were allowed to go up until after her birthday.  (a rule that she broke this year , by the way!  Her tree was up before Thanksgiving this year!)

This year, since we were going to Disney right after Thanksgiving for 10 days, putting a tree up in a timely manner was again put in jeopardy!  See, I like real trees.  All the good real trees are gone shortly after Thanksgiving, so we had a very, very limited choice.  We have very tall ceilings, so it has to be a tall tree to not look strange. And, of course, we have to put the tree in an awkward space, so it can't be too full (even though I LOVE full trees!)

We were relatively lucky this year.  We got a smaller tree than we wanted, but the tallest one we could find.  Since it wasn't as tall as normal, it was about 25 dollars cheaper than we had budgeted.

Then came the light issues.  I am positive, that last year when we un-decorated the tree, that the lights were all put back on the fancy light holder thingys.  But, when we got them out, they were all thrown in the box, with the fancy light holder thingys, in a tangled, jumble mess.

It took two of us over an hour to untangle the lights...only to discover that over half the lights did not work!  So, wonderful hubby went on the search for lights.  Now, lights are very important to me.  Ever since Germany, I only want white lights on my tree, and they have to be twinkling, not blinking!

See, blinking means a whole section of the string goes out at the same time...leaving a whole section of the tree dark.  While twinkling means each bulb is independent in the flashing.  No dark spaces in the tree.

Store #1 only had white in blinking.  He bought me 3 boxes of these lights.  He meant well.  But after they were on the tree, he agreed they were not doing it!  So off he went to store #2.  They had the same type of lights as store #1, unless you wanted to buy a set of 500 feet or more.  So, off to store #3.  This time he found what we needed and got me two more boxes.

So, we managed to put those two boxes on the tree last night.  The tree now has ENOUGH lights, but they are not very artfully arranged. In fact, I really dislike...very strongly...the way the lights look.  I wanted to take them down and redo them last night, but my back and neck had other ideas, so I hoped that they would look better in the morning and went to bed.

No, no Christmas Elves came in the middle of the night to decorate my tree.It was still waiting for me to finish when I got up.  But my resolve to redo the lights was gone.  Not that they looked any better, just I really did not have the time to do it!

So, this morning, I have been putting some ornaments on the tree.  With the help of a three year old.  Let's just say that the number of breakable ornaments is quite a bit less than there was this time yesterday!

I think it is time for a break from tree decorating for a while!!


Nini