O Christmas Tree...Griswold Style

We got our tree yesterday.

Notice I didn't put any exclamation points at the end of that. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas trees, and our house seems so much merrier/brighter with it shining in front of the window.

But this is our third tree since we've been married, and there is always drama involved when it comes to us and Christmas trees. Yesterday after we picked it out and shoved it into the back of the mullet truck, I looked at Thomas and said "are you mentally preparing for what is about to happen in the next hour or so?" Because due to past experiences, I knew we should just go ahead and accept that anger was going to come out over the tree for two reasons:

A. putting it into the stand (we had to buy a new one since our other one is in SC)
B. putting the lights on it (also had to buy new)

So this year I decided that we had to document this occasion, because we always laugh about it later but the anger rises high in the heat of the Christmas tree organization moment.

Part 1: putting the screws into the tree stand. Please note all of the belongings of our 4 guests {who were in Boston at the time} piled around us. At this point, I was starting to unleash my anger on our dirty house and began spiraling downward because of all the clutter. Also note that we did not practice our facial expressions. We were that focused and testy.

Part 2: putting the tree into the stand. This was a big focus point for us this year because the past 2 years our tree has fallen over MULTIPLE times throughout the Christmas season. Last year we even tied it to the curtain rod with fishing wire. It pulled the curtains down. 

Part 3: putting the lights on the tree. Every year we argue about HOW the lights should be placed on the tree. Thomas is intense about it and wants the tree to be very, very bright. Therefore, he uses an incredible about of lights and takes about 30 minutes to shove them into every nook and cranny of the tree. This drives me crazy because I am not a perfectionist and just want to get the ordeal over with ASAP. I mentioned to him that I was NOT going to go get more lights for our tree, so he'd better use them sparingly. So he tossed them onto the tree and said "here, we'll just do it your way and throw them on. If we're going to do this thing poorly, just let me know right now so I can accept it."

HA. HA. HA. He's even competitive about putting a darn tree up.

Part 4: I do not have a photo of part 4 but I sure wish I did. Part 4 consisted of one strand of lights not working. These lights were brand new, and like I said, I was NOT taking them back. I wanted the tree over with NOW. So we had to figure these lights out. Thomas took one end and I took the other, and we checked each bulb. Thomas also worked on the fuse for about 15 minutes. Every time we plugged them in, I felt like the Griswald's in this scene from "Christmas Vacation." We finally figured out which bulb it was, but every time you moved the strand, half of the lights went out. It was infuriating and I kept referring to it as a "cruel joke."

Part 5: Proudly does she stand. We had to get creative with the decorations because all of ours are.....you guessed it....in storage. So it is a little sparse but it makes us happy and we had fun admiring it the remainder of the evening. Please notice that I made the bow on top myself, which I am quite proud of. Also notice that I took this photo at 4:30pm, and it was already almost completely dark outside. 

Welcome to New England, right?