Christmas Tree

We started putting up the Christmas tree this year a long time before it was trimmed and looking beautiful.  Blip had a good time crawling under and around the tree while we had only the bottom section out of the box.  I forget every year how much work goes into making our artificial tree look nice.  I spent HOURS the first night..."fluffing" each individual piece of each individual branch, and the tree was only about 1/2 done. Ugh.

I worked on it another night that week, but still didn't finish before I had to go to bed.  After getting all the pieces put together, there was a hole.  Branches were missing/in the wrong place and everything was so tangled I couldn't fix the mess.

At some point in this Christmas tree saga, Mike secretly asked Richelle to come over with the boys to help me get the tree decorated.  So one night Richelle brought two boys and started trimming the tree.  I was super frustrated.  The boys are great decorators, but there was still that huge hole...and we had two ladders out, so there were two part of the tree not getting trimmed...plus the huge hole area.  Richelle was frustrated with me because I wasn't happy with what was going on...and she yelled at me about being a perfectionist and left with her boys.

Well...I guess I am a perfectionist, so I can't say I'm not.  However, there was a HUGE hole!!  AND...all of the lights weren't plugged in yet and adding ornaments before everything is plugged in correctly just makes everything more complicated.  I also forgot to mention that when the top of the tree was put in place, it was crooked...and the branches still looked like they came out of a box.  I just went to bed and said ta heck with that stupid tree.

I didn't touch the tree again all week...and then finally got back to it on my day off.  I took every. single. branch off that dang tree and started over.  I learned that every row is numbered and each row is only connected to each other.  Then all the plugs go from row to row and into the main power cord along the trunk of the tree. It took me FOREVER, but when I finally finished I was so happy and the tree was beautiful.  I played with it forever, but was able to get all the lights plugged in correctly so they all worked.

Mike was home by that point, so we decorated the tree together.  The baby was in bed, and we had a nice time just hanging out together for a change.  We have never been able to find a tree topper that we loved.  Mike asked me what it was I was looking for, so I explained to him that I really just wanted a stupid, cheap star...like we had growing up.  It wasn't super expensive, but we had it on our tree every year.  It was silver (not really) and lit up.  That's what I want.  I told him I have been looking my entire adult life, but had never found anything just right.  A few days later, I got a package in the mail with a cheap gold (not really) star that lights up.  It was perfect.

Blip loved to look at the tree all lit up, but unfortunately the day before Christmas Eve...the bottom half died.  The lights went out and no matter what we did...they would not come back on.  I was pretty disappointed because I had worked so dang hard to get the tree up and decorated, but mostly because I didn't have a chance to get any pictures of the pretty tree with Blip.  Oh well....now he has pictures with a half-lit Christmas tree.  Ended up not really mattering anyway.

This year I had some fun new ornaments to hang on the tree.  Mike and I try to get an ornament when we travel, and I do the same thing in trips with my sisters.  When we were in Vancouver over the summer I found a beluga whale ornament for Blip. We sing him the "Baby Beluga" song with his name in place of "baby beluga"....so it was the perfect find.

I found a cute bee ornament when I was pregnant and we were in Yellowstone.  That was a fun trip...and really the only part of my pregnancy I was NOT on bed rest.

I found a police Mickey at Disney this year, so I bought him quickly!  He was so cute! When I was unwrapping our special ornaments this year, I found the same police Mickey...guess I found him last year too.  Well...at least there are two of us here, so both work.

For Blip's first Christmas ornament, I found him a bear with a "C" on it.  Since "bear" has been his nickname since day 3 of his life, it's perfect.

I also got to admire my cool Club 33 ornament from last year AND this year, too.  I wasn't going to buy a second one, but they are different every year!  I may never get to go to Club 33 again, so I am happy to have two keepsakes that are extremely limited edition.

Richelle and Sydney helped me take everything off the tree a few days after Christmas, and Mike hauled it to Goodwill and out of our lives forever.  Now I never have to hear him complain about how much he hates the Christmas tree again.  Not sure what we'll do next year, but I'm excited to start 2013 off without complaining about the oversized, duct taped box.