We cheated

I think it killed my husband a little bit today, but we bought a fake Christmas tree this year. Rick grew up working for his grandparent’s garden center in Cincinnati and at Christmas time, he was on tree delivery duty. He’s a little bit thorough (ok, a LOT thorough) when we shop for Christmas trees (well, he’s thorough about really anything we’re going to spend money on) – and buying a tree usually takes us an hour or so (and that’s even just going to a place where they have the trees already cut – it’s not like we’re hiking through a tree farm to pick one out). I admit that I think it is fun and romantic – if we had the time to do it right. But we don’t.

So here are the reasons I felt we had to cheat (not really sure why I have to justify to my blog readers, but maybe Mallory & Carson will want to know why we faked it ?)

• I don’t like vacuuming as it is, let alone vacuuming more because of needles from the Christmas tree. And with a crazy dog and his corresponding tail, plus a toddler and his corresponding hands, it would only be worse this year than in it has in the past.
• With football having games on Thanksgiving weekend, Rick’s free time between Thanksgiving and Christmas just shrunk by a week. Normal people can go spend Friday or Saturday or Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend finding and buying and setting up their tree every year. We can’t. So while we’ll still have the annual setting up part – we at least saved ourselves the annual finding and buying parts.
• With a bowl game back on the schedule, I figured we’d return from that trip to a dead tree that – if it hadn’t already – would drop every needle while I tried to un-decorate it and haul it out of the house (since RB would be at work unpacking a truck). This has happened in the past so I usually end up tossing the tree out before we leave for the trip…and still have to deal with a ton of needles.

So today, while Rick was out training for his marathon, the kids & I bought a tree, and had it almost all the way set up before he got home.

We all helped decorate it – and I’m sad I didn’t get a picture of Carson’s cluster of ornaments before he took them all off and put them back in the box. Plus he’s having a hard time realizing that the ornament balls on the tree aren’t for hitting or throwing. Mallory made sure to put her princess ornaments way up high. I think that scenario actually played out like this: “DAD! PUT ME UP SUPER-DUPER HIGH SO I CAN PUT MY PWINCETH ORNAMENTS UP THERE SO CA-THUN CAN’T BWEAK THEM!”)

But during a moment of calm during the afternoon, I was able to capture this unbelievable sweetness.