Oh Tannenbaum

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. ~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas

Last year when we went to hunt our tree, Mrs. H said she would not be doing it this year. Of course we had heard that before and thought nothing of it....until this year when she really didn't open her acreage. Oh horror of horrors now where do we go to get a tree?! We found another cut your own Christmas tree lot over an hour away and decided against that. We stopped at one precut lot and found the perfect tree...$100! C-ya! I would spend that on an artificial tree that I could put in a box and reuse but not something I am going to toss into my brothers chipper.

We ended up going to Home Depot where we stood up tree after tree until we found an 8 foot balsam fir for $31. As we all know trees look smaller outside, but we were technically inside an unheated section and it did not look big. It was untied when we looked at it and I knew it would relax some. We got it home and put it in the stand and watered it. We let it sit there overnight and it got huge! I started to think there must be something in the water....maybe that is what happened to my butt!? It is a good thing we never use the front door because you would not get through it!

So Sunday morning after seeing my livingroom eaten by a tree, I happily sit down with a string of lights and my new handy dandy tool that will test all the strings, bulbs, fuses etc etc etc. I take out the directions and find I need two watch batteries. Are they for real? AAA, AA I could understand and have plenty of, but watch batteries?! Tossed that tool in the box and did it the old fashioned way, bulb by bulb....of course after they were finally on the tree I found several brand new boxes of lights. I think I am related to Murphy.

With the lights on the tree, the kids went to work decorating it. Some people tried sticking their beak

in where it didn't belong as they do consider themselves part of the family so thought they had the right. She is standing on the side porch peering in the floor to ceiling window by the woodstove. She is actually there to tell us she wants some treats. They are very spoiled. If you ignore them, they tap on the windows and doors until they get what they want.

When that tree was done (already minus tinsel on the bottom from the dogs rubbing up against it), we put up another tree. This one went up so much faster than the other and with no surprises!

Then we continued to decorate a little more.

Some snowmen on the shelf

And the hot chocolate/cookie stationToday more will come out of the boxes. But before they do, #2 son has an eye doctor appointment and I need to go motivate him. I am not looking forward to the drive as the area I have to go to had a two hour school delay. I hate icy roads but this does give me some guilt free knitting time.