9-11a.m. Try to talk Mike into saving money by just cutting down a tree in the yard. I show him the tree I have in mind. He shoots the idea down, tells me it isn't full enough for him. Spend the next 2 hours trying to find a "cheap" place on the Internet that's in our area that we can go and cut down a tree. Come across an ad on Craigslist advertising any tree up to 23 feet tall for $25.00. Sounds good, the ad is expired, but figure it's worth checking out.
1 p.m. Leave to drive about 20 minutes away to meet my brother with his jeep and go to the christmas tree place. After a few attempts to turn into the wrong place, we arrive at the correct location. There are no trees in the price range we are hoping for. We ALWAYS get a Noble Fir, they are my favorite, but the lady wants $75.00 for a 12 ft. noble. I spot a really big Douglas Fir and the lady says we can have it for $40. Decide for once, we can try a different type of tree. Mike and Brett tie the tree to Brett's jeep and off we go.
3 p.m. We arrive home and put the tree in the stand, we get it to stand up perfectly straight on the first attempt. Spend forever giving it water, can't believe how much water it's taking to fill up the stand.4 p.m. Leave to go get a fast and early dinner at Taco Bell and stop to pick up some more clear lights.
5 p.m. Arrive home to find that there is a huge wet spot underneath the tree. Get a little freaked out when I discover that the carpet underneath the tree is completely soaked. We take down the tree and discover that our tree stand that we've had since 1994 is a piece of junk and no longer holds water....thus the reason for me having to fill and fill the stupid thing up.
5:30 p.m. Get out the shop vac to suck up all the water....not much comes up. Try to put the tree in another stand that we have, but the trunk is too big.
6 p.m. Run back out to the store to buy a new stand. The cheapest stand that will hold a 12 ft. tree is $60.00. Foolishly decide to buy the one for $19.99 that says it will hold a 10 ft. tree. Buy more lights.
7 p.m. Arrive home and attempt to put the tree in the new stand. No matter what we do, the tree will not stand straight. We fight with what I'm now referring to as the "Beast" for at least an hour, trying not to use any bad words, out loud anyways.
8 p.m. Get the tree pretty straight, but the tree is too heavy for the dumb stand we bought. Tree tries to fall over. Mike takes advantage of the little holes on the bottom of the stand and literally screws the tree stand to the floor. Jacob comes running into the room yelling "What the heck was that sound?" Emily in a really monotone voice replies "Oh, that's just dad screwing the tree to the floor." Mike and I start laughing hysterically.
8:30 p.m. I start putting the lights on the tree.
9:30 p.m. Realize I still don't have enough lights and send Mike back off on another emergency light run.
10:30 p.m. After 1,750 lights, the tree is all lit up. Start putting on the decorations. Kelsey refuses to help decorate the tree and says over and over it's not even December yet. Whatever.
12 a.m. Finish decorating the tree. We all decide it might be one of our prettiest trees ever.11 a.m. Get out the carpet cleaner.....Mike cleans and cleans the nice giant yellow spot that has been left behind by the tree.
24 hours later Stain is still there. Push chair over to hide nice new stained carpet.
Our house all lit up for Christmas.
1 comment:
Jami,
This is hilarious! I tried to convince Mike to buy a fake tree this year to avoid the hassle, but we just couldn't do it! For some reason, the fresh trees are worth it?!?!
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