November 28, 2012

• Setting up Christmas

  I broke down and bought a new Christmas tree.  We bought our first artificial tree 25 years ago when I was expecting our last child.  Up to that time we had always had real trees.  It was pretty amazing, after we got the artificial tree nobody got sick at Christmas anymore!  Usually my husband and one of my kids would be sick with respiratory related issues through the Christmas season.  Poor Cora always had a runny nose and twice ended up with pneumonia.  The doctor had told us that it was due to her allergy to the trees, which triggered her asthma, which would aggravate respiratory distress.... pneumonia the end of the game.  She was so much happier when we got rid of the real trees.

  That first tree lasted us about 13 years.  It finally became a bit needle bare and we bought a new one when we moved to the Houston area.  I never quite liked the second tree as much as the first.  We have a lot of hanging ornaments and the new tree just didn't have enough room for them to dangle.  And call me silly but I don't like when ornaments lie on the outside of a tightly packed tree.  If they are to hang by golly they should hang!

  Last year the whole family worked out a tree trade.  My son had picked up a 12 ft. tree on Craig's List for free.  For some odd reason he thought his house had 12 foot ceilings...... WHY he thought this I'm not sure but he did.  The tree was "pre-lit" but only one of the strands actually lit up.  He talked me into trading my unlit tree for his non-working pre-lit tree because my house does have high ceilings.  13 foot ceilings in the living room.  He then gave his old tree to Hannah who wanted a taller tree.  Hannah quickly discovered why Aaron wanted a new tree as her new one took hours to set up.  You had to insert each branch individually in it's special slot.  She complained and Aaron laughed.  It wasn't all Aaron was laughing about.  I set about to cut off the non-working lights on my new tree.  Oh my.  Some poor Chinese worker must have worked thousands of hours to tightly wrap these lights on the tree.  I almost gave up and said I'd just drape my own lights over the tree and ignore the unlit ones but I persevered and along with Hannah's help we cut off 2500 lights.  It took us two days.

  Maybe the days with wire cutters tainted the tree but I really didn't like it.  It was too tall, too skinny, and just not what I was looking for.  Maybe it was the LED lights I bought to put on it.  I REALLY disliked the lights.  Bright spots of light without any gentle glow.  That soft glowing tree in the corner had turned into a huge bundle of bright laser lights.

  So this year I bought a new tree.  I bought a 9 ft. tree which gives my angel enough room at the top to rest comfortably without scraping the ceiling.  It reminds me a lot of my first tree.  So I suppose that is good.  And I didn't have to cut any lights off.

  I see a garage sale in the 12 footer's future.  I'm thinking next October it will pay me back.

  And I'm not giving Aaron the money.  I earned it.   

   

  Hannah bought a new tree this year.  I think Aaron is the one who came out smelling like a rose in this whole deal.  I'm re-thinking the whole favorite son thing.....

   

   

   

  • 7:43 am
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