O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree!

At the end of last year, we discarded our shabby old Christmas Tree. I now clearly remember saying, "If we don't get rid of it, we'll just be tempted to use it again and this way, we'll have to go out and get a new one." The only thing is, I'd forgotten I said that until I went to bring the Christmas gear in from the shed and found it was missing. So we went out to look for one.

Before I go any further, I must add that purchasing a living Christmas Tree each year is not an option for us. Back in 1997 my dh cut down a little self-sown pine in our front yard that had grown too close to our foundation and we decided to use that one. We thought it brilliant & wonderful at the time, but in the summer heat, the pine needle smell grew stronger & stronger until I had a terrific case of hay-fever! Worse than that, Logan, our only child at the time, kept developing weird rashes and puffy purple eyes like nothing I'd ever seen. I don't know if the Tree was responsible for that but it was the only new variable in our house so I wasted no time in getting it out the door ASAP. Since then we've stuck to artificial trees.

What you see above is the tree we bought a few weeks ago. The lady in the shop promised that it'd be the most simple, straightforward, no-nonsense tree we could ever imagine. It sounded good to me. We got it home to discover that it's basically one long spiral of wire covered with green tinsel. It even came with its own stars for decorations. And we did assemble it in about five seconds flat. All the boys and I were quite taken with the simple elegance of it, but there was one major hassle. Emma was not happy. You see, it was the perfect "lazy man's" tree, so simple that she couldn't hang decorations on the spiral! And Emma loves all that extra work that goes with the Season. So she did her block and declared, "This has absolutely ruined my Christmas!"

And whenever she got into a sour mood about anything whatsoever, the poor tree bore the brunt of it and became her scapegoat. I told her we couldn't afford to buy another tree, but she insisted that we keep looking around, just the same.

In the end, we had a stroke of good fortune. We borrowed my in-law's old tree. They've purchased a new, flashy fibre optic one, so their old one made its way over here. Emma had the pleasure of decorating it, (as you see below), our new spiral one has been relegated to the other living area, and we're all happy. But I see that trying to keep things simple has resulted in more complication, as sometimes happens. Instead of one tree we now have two, one in each living area!

But that's OK. Christmas Trees always bring back good memories of the Christmas when Emma had just turned one, and it was among her first words. She'd see them everywhere we went, point them out and pronounce it, "Mimmuf Tree!" So our 2 Christmas Trees this year certainly brighten up the house.