Tannenbaum

We did it, we decided to attempt a Christmas tree again.

Our past Christmases have been laden with Christmas tree disasters. For every year of a successful Christmas tree, there is one where it was more interesting.

Do you see what I see?

There was the Christmas when I was 5 or 6, and we didn't have money for a tree. It resulted in my brother and I (he was much older and a legal driver) circling the town looking for someone who'd sell us a tree for 5.00. We did find one.

Or the tree we purchased that was a little wider than we anticipated. Despite the fact that it took up half the room it was pretty. Except it was too tall and the star wouldn't fit on top. We cut the top off and it ended up looking like a round piney ball. Duct tape worked great though to reattach the tip.

The year we lost half the branches to our artificial tree. Presumably they were left in the basement of the house we had moved out of. Leaving things during moves is a tradition. When we moved to the frozen tundra, we managed to leave all our pot and pan lids. That, takes talent.

My personal favorite tree story though, is when we had a tree delivered by my sibling's grandfather (too complicated of a story there). He owned a tree farm and dropped off a netted tree on our porch as a present. It was a beautiful tree, but at least 8 feet tall. My friend and I started to saw the bottom off with a very dull, very old saw. An hour later we had the tree cut to size, and 35 minutes later it was in the stand. By this time my mom was home and we decorated it carefully. It was truly a gorgeous tree, huge, full, and we had perfectly hung all the decorations. We took a step back to admire our handiwork and watched in awe as the tree swayed and fell to the floor, decorations flying everywhere. My friend looked on stunned as my mom and I laughed hysterically. Come to think of it, our friendship kind of faded away after that. Evidently there are 2 types of people in the world. Those who laugh at tragedy, and those who don't.

And of course there was the last tree we had. In 2009 we decorated a little artificial tree I had purchased the year before (this one's branches were firmly permanently attached) only to watch helplessly as the cats denuded the ornaments, knocked the tree over, scattered and shattered ornaments and finally broke all the branches of the poor little tree. It was a Christmas carnage and truly painful. Last year we forsook a tree but this year we decided the cats were old enough and fat enough to try again. We have been conditioning them to spend part of the night in the bathroom as a safety measure just to be safe, and stocked up on their favorite food just in case they need to be satiated with food to leave the twinkle lights alone. We will see how this goes..

Braving the wilds of the tree lot

Just the right fluffy tree

They picked the same tree. Miracles to exist in the Christmas season!

 

Lance checks it out for safety

Neptune takes off the netting

Mercury pretends he's living in the wilds

Ramses checks out where the kitties are

 

Picture of innocence

Bella sits in wait (She will be the problem I predict)

Cory found a yarn ornament he made

Covering all angles

Two stars for 2 kids

Decorated!