Make Like a Tree...

It's a testament to how busy we've been this December that I just dug through my phone and these were pretty much the only pictures I've taken since Thanksgiving. Whoops! It's that time of year again. But the house is decorated, the cards have (mostly) been sent, the shopping is almost done, and in three days I'll be on holiday break! Three insane days filled with Snowman Parties grade level gift exchanges and Polar Express and grades and report cards and generally just surviving the craziness, but three days nonetheless.

So we had major drama with our tree this year. Honestly, it probably deserves its own post, but let's face it, I'll be lucky if this one even makes it out. So after our lovely Thanksgiving break, we were determined to end our time off with our tree. The past couple years we've had great success at a store that Shall Not Be Named but rhymes with Ike's. One nice thing about this said store is that the tree have tree stands already on them, and if you buy one, you can return it in January for store credit. So essentially - free tree stand!

Well, we went to our usual Ike's location, but none of the trees in our budget were any good. So we took our whining children home, dumped them on the neighbors, and set out for the other Ike's location. This time we found a great tree! Mind you, it was way bigger and fatter than we were planning on, but honestly I was just happy to pick one out. We waited foreeeeever to get the thing put on the car, but finally we had it home. The girls majorly stressed me out trying to "help" decorate it, but finally it was done, just in time for bedtime. Then we headed back to school after our break.

Usually I immediately forget to water the Christmas trees, but this year I was on it, giving that sucker all the water it wanted. Then on Tuesday as I knelt down to water the tree again, I realized that the towels we had place it on were wet. Completely soaked through wet. That stupid "free" tree stand had a leak!

So, friends, what do you do with a completely decorated tree sitting on a leaking tree stand? Options we really thought of:

a) try to lift the tree from the top while someone unscrews the tree stand at the bottom

b) take a saw to the tree trunk just above the tree stand

c) undecorate the entire tree once the girls go to bed, tip the tree in order to catch the excess water in a bucket, lay the tree down on the coffee table, unscrew the fj*$! tree stand, put a new stand on, attempt to tip the tree back onto its feet, silently curse the now broken branches and giant holes, redecorate the entire tree with decidedly less holiday spirit than the first time

So it's safe to say that while the tree is up and standing again, I feel no emotional connection to this thing. I'll just be happy if it stays upright through the holidays.

Gonna try to recapture the joy.

Run Run Rudolph!

Keeping it classy.

Winter Wonderland