Why Did We Have to Say, "This is the Easiest Christmas Tree Ever!"?

Tonight we will either be successful shoring up our Christmas tree, or we'll be taking it down 11 days before Christmas. I wouldn't say this year's tree experience has been as rough as the time three years ago that Tim chopped the lights with gardening shears AFTER the entire tree was decorated, but it HAS been a challenge. The kids' tree is still front and center when you walk in the house, in its easy-to-assemble and semi-stable artificial glory, but the real tree downstairs has been causing problems.

Because of the difficulty of taking Andrew anywhere in the evening, I quickly picked a tree out by myself one morning this week instead of waiting for us all to go after work. I didn't like going by myself. It reminded me of doing that after my mom died. Maybe the tree didn't like it much either.

Plopping it in the stand, Tim and I both remarked on how easy it was, since the tree was smaller and lighter than usual.

However, no matter how many times we twisted, the screws wouldn't anchor on anything. The trunk was a soggy, pulpy mess. After about 10 minutes, Tim said he was giving up. I suggested we toss it on the back deck and throw some white lights on it for an outdoor decoration. Margaret begged us to rally, from her comfortable perch on the couch, of course.

I suggested we could anchor it to the walls with twine, as my grandpa would have done, but Tim was having none of that, saying, "I've never heard of anyone doing that before!" So, I guess if he hasn't heard of it, it can't possibly be a thing.

Eventually, he made little shims out of wood so that the screws would have somewhere to go, AND we used fishing line to anchor it to a heavy table on one side and my favorite hulking "dumpster dive" on the other. All was well, and I decorated it until 12:30 am.

The next day it was leaning.

And leaning.

And leaning.

We tightened all the things.

Because we are going on a trip, we don't think it's fair that our house sitters and the dogs should have to deal with a downed tree and potentially hundreds of broken glass ornaments.

So after Tim puts Andrew to bed tonight (Yay, Tim! He does it every night), we will assess whether to up our fishing line game, or take down the tree. I always love how spacious the house feels after the trees are down, but it does seem a bit early in the season for that...

I'll keep you posted!

p.s. I ran across this old post from 2009 in which I call the family by pseudonyms, show how grumpy I am, and mention a surprise after-40 pregnancy. What?!? 

Tree-dition Rocks

I'm about to start revisions for my book, so I may be scarce for the next few week. It's exciting to be entering the "home stretch." and I really appreciate your prayers and support!

Before I disappear, however, I have a few things to share with you.

First, Bear is dead. Margaret's sweet hamster that Auntie Liz bought her a few days after the accident has died. We had a quick burial in the back yard, and shed some serious tears. Bear was a very dear pet who let me carry him around, baby talk to him, and never once nipped at us.

Second, I need to tell you about our Christmas tree fun. So, you know how we've always had a Kids' Tree and a Grown-up Tree? I know Kristen Howerton got flack on Twitter last week for wanting to put up a separate Kids' Tree, because she didn't want to cover her main tree with all of the dough and paper plate ornaments from her four kids.  Well, I say "More power to you, Sister!" We've been doing that for years and the kids have always loved it! I'm pretty sure having two (or three or four!) trees does not mean you love your kids any less.

You see, our family attended an Advent craft workshop for 9 years straight. Each kid came home with 10-12 ornaments per year. That's a lot of glitter and macaroni, people. There was no way my mom's gold balls and silver bows were going to fit on one tree with all of that homemade goodness. Thus, the two trees.

The kids felt special, plus it helped me seem much more laid back than I was when Tim's mom sent us 2 identical Hallmark Mark McGuire baseball player ornaments one year. Instead of hiding them on the lower inner reaches of the regular tree, I got to exclaim, "Wouldn't these be so festive on the Kids' Tree!?" without looking like too much of a jerk. Over the years, the contents of the trees got more intermingled as we put more of the kids' projects on the main tree, such as the paper ornaments they made with the names of Jesus on them.

Anyway, in the old house, the Kids' Tree was a large artificial tree that stood in the upstairs stairwell right outside Jack and Margaret's rooms. I liked how its lights sparkled through the window as we pulled into the driveway. In the new house, there's no such spot, so the Kids' Tree is now front and center in the living room, and you see it right when you walk in the door.

But that still left the matter of the "real" tree. After a colossal Thanksgiving road trip, that started out with my feeling hopeful and positive and ended up screaming sadness and LACK into my heart, we made it home to a dead hamster and the task of purchasing and putting up the real tree. Tim got it in the stand for me. He debated cutting off a few lower branches to make a more solid fit, but then decided against it. I said nothing.

I waited for him to do the lights, which is his usual job. I prefer to be the one who says, "Dude, you need more lights in that bare spot" than the one actually doing it. Tim, however, wasn't feeling well, and decided to watch football instead. I was aggravated but decided to turn over a holiday new leaf.

Instead of reminding him that he had spent 3 hours working on his sister's tree on Saturday, and helping my brother with various home projects during the 6 days of male bonding time they had sans families before Thanksgiving, I kept my annoyed mouth shut. Killing him with kindness wasn't an option, so I just opted not to kill him.

I waited until the family went to bed and did all the lights myself. Then, I started to decorate. One thing led to another until the tree was almost finished after about 3 hours.

Except then it began to lean at an odd angle. It was not secure in the stand. I lovingly woke up Tim and inquired as to whether he might be willing to come downstairs and straighten the tree with me, lest it fall crashing down in the night. He demurred and resumed sleeping.

It didn't fall, yet I was forced to look at the Leaning Tower of Tree-sa all day yesterday.

Last night Tim was ready to deal with it. Which is good, because if I had to look it one more day, wondering when my heirloom ornaments were going to break, I think I'd have to turn my new leaf right back to the other side.

He lifted the fully decorated tree out of the stand, while I chopped off the offending branch. It was not an easy process. There were no I told you so's, no sounds at all really, just the tinkling of ornaments hitting the floor. After the tree was secure, I stood back and congratulated myself for not being a nag. All was well, even if the tree looked a little worse for the wear. The tree had survived, and so had our marriage.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied Tim crouching near the base of the fully decorated and lit tree with a long pair of hedge clippers. One of the branches did not look quite right to him.  It protruded farther than was acceptable to his newfound Christmas decorating sensibilities. So he opened those suckers up and chopped off the branch along with a strand of lights--  and the entire tree went dark.

I still did not say a word, but climbed into bed with the tv remote and a large bag of M&M's.

Today I took the lights off and hung new ones, which was of course super-easy to do on a fully decorated tree.

The tree now looks fine, thank goodness, and my tongue is sore from biting it for the past 3 days.

All is well.

But could someone kindly inform my husband that "trimming the tree" does not mean what he thinks it means?

Thank you.

Traditions Old and New

I've shared with you some of our favorite family Christmas traditions. I've included photos of  my big impact, low stress decorating routines. And of course I've confessed some of my hormone-induced Christmas meltdowns.

Today I'd like to share one old Christmas tradition and one new one.

For years I've been putting our family Christmas card photo on a tree ornament. I write the year on the back with a sharpie. Any photo site such as MyPublisher or Shutterfly has this option. I've also had success with Walmart.com and Costco. I usually do it when ordering our cards, and if I forget, I just do it for a few years at a time. All of these sites make it super easy to upload a photo and order an ornament.

Here are two from past years:

Last year, our first Christmas without Jack, we started a simple new tradition I saw in a magazine. We save the piece of wood cut off the bottom of our tree and make a rustic ornament out of it.

Margaret writes the year with a sharpie, finds a ribbon to go through the hole, and hangs it on the tree.  Many trees have holes drilled in the bottom these days so they'll stand up at the tree lot, but if yours doesn't, you could staple or hot glue a ribbon to the back.

 Waiting for a ribbon...

Do you have any old or new traditions to share?

Balls, Balls, and More Balls!

Get your minds out of the gutter.

Here are some pictures Blogger didn't seem to want me to add to my last post.

Kitchen: (Yes, there are fake pears hiding under there)



Living Room: (HUGE wreath on window above couch)

Some of these silver balls are 47 years old.
Dining Room

So now you have what the See house is looking like this Christmas.

What is YOUR go-to look for Holiday Decorating?

Say it Ain't So, Joe!

We did some holiday decorating this weekend. I'd love to share it with you if I can figure out how to take a decent picture.

If you look at our nativity set, which sits on the same mirrored shelf that it sat on each year in my home growing up, you would see that Joseph has been replaced by some greenery and a silver ball.

Seems that the book wreath I spent 5+ hours making (!) fell, sending Joseph crashing down on our ugly tile floor.

Am I terrible to be inwardly glad it was Joseph, not Mary or Jesus? I mean now I feel like I can leave it up there as-is, but it would be just too weird to have only Joseph and Jesus there, or Mary and Joseph. By the way, I realize Jesus is missing a foot. That was a pre-existing condition.

Poor Joe. Seems like he has always had it rough. Can you imagine what it was like for him down at the local bar when he had to explain that his fiancee had been impregnated... by GOD?

Yikes.

And now people like me act like he's a disposable part of the nativity. I shouldn't let my son Jake read this post because he just landed the part of Joseph in this year's church nativity play-- a non-speaking role, of course, in keeping with Joseph's quiet stoicism. Meanwhile, Molly gets to be the star of the play. No, really, the STAR, all twinkly and speaking-party and everything.

Oh well. I guess I could keep what's left of Joseph-- a head and two hands-- but the head looks a little too John the Baptist-y for Christmastime, don't you think?

If you didn't have a chance to read my last post, on 10 of my favorite things, check it out here.