Okay, so here's our great Christmas tree story this year: So remember after Thanksgiving we went up to the Mountains and got a Christmas tree? It was so pretty... it was REALLY pretty when it was a 75 foot tree. It was pretty when it was a 15 foot tree... then Hunter measured and cut it to fit in hour house... and now it's a .... are you sure that's a Christmas tree? (not even sort of pretty) Dang, it was so pretty too. It is really skinny, probably the envy of all Christmas trees everywhere, most Christmas trees do tend to be a little fat these days. All of the lower branches grew up and were full and made the tree nice and fat. I wish I could lose weight that fast! Well, we decorated it anyway, because like I'm always telling the critters, if you can't do anything about it, why throw a fit about it? It is, what it is, so let's make the best of it. (Save your fit throwing energy for something you CAN do something about - then make the change).After the critters initial shock of seeing our skinny tree, they had fun decorating it. Lemur wasn't sure what was going on, but figured if 6 critters were putting decorations on the tree, he'd better help out by taking them off. We thought we had all the breakable stuff high up, but of course he found a way to reach some and break them anyway. He doesn't gently take them off either... he grabs and yanks and pulls until either the ornament comes off, or the branch does. I'm going to be vacuuming needles up until next Halloween!
I was driving around the other day and found some really nice looking Christmas trees for $10.00!! What a deal. I had the thought - wish we would have just got one of those. Then I thought - but there'd be no story to tell, how boring is that? Which reminded me of our tree getting experience a few years ago:
We decided to go up to the mountains in our minivan one Saturday morning in early December. But first we had to get ready to go: snow pants x 8, snow boots x 8, stocking hats x 8, gloves x 34 (can't have too many gloves), coats x 8. Coolers packed with hot dogs, buns, marshmallows, chips, drinks, hot chocolate, pot for hot chocolate, matches etc. Hatchet, sleds, etc. etc. As we were packing, I asked Hunter, "do you have some rope?" He'd say, "Oh, not yet" go out to the garage to get some and get side tracked by a critter asking if he had seen their boots/gloves/pants/hat and stop to help them. Several times I asked Hunter if he had some rope, and then was side tracked myself, assuming he got the rope. We were finally packed and headed out for the two hour drive to the spot that would be PERFECT to get Christmas trees.
By the time we got up there, we were certainly ready to get out of the van! The snow was deep and fluffy. We found a nice spot to pull over, build a fire, go sledding and cook lunch. After sledding for a while, we went on the tree hunt. Hunter found a really pretty, full, lush, bushy fir tree and started cutting it down. All of the critters took turns hacking away at it too. (We had only a hatchet - no chain saw this year!) It fell and we drug it over to the van.
"Where's the rope?" I asked, ready to get it out of the van. "Oh crud, I forget to get any."
So, we were about 30 minutes from the nearest anything that might have rope for sale and it was getting colder and dark fast. We rummaged through the van and found a big coffee can sized can that Martin had left in the van - he had taken up crocheting in school and was trying to crochet the worlds longest chain stitch ever. He had about 50 feet of it. We borrowed it. We also took the laces out of two of the critters boots and tied them together. The van we had back then didn't have a luggage rack on it, so we had to figure out how to tie the tree to the rear view mirrors, and then on the rear we opened the back windows and tied it to something on the window. We hoped it would hold.
We piled the critters and snow clothes x a bajillion into the van and started down the road. We were going nice and slow on the snow packed road, but when we got to the main road, Hunter started going a little faster. All we had to do was make it into "town" (and I use that word loosely) and we could buy some rope that would definitely hold it. Well, the tree stayed on the van, so Hunter went a little faster. I know Hunter hates it when I'm a "back seat driver" so I didn't say anything at first. He went a little faster, and I finally said, "do you think that's fast enough?" "Ya, look, it's holding, I think it will be fine." So he went a little faster. Then we hear.... scraping on the top of the van, stretching of the crochet chain stitch rope, scraping on the top of the van, then POP! it all broke, and we looked behind the van, watching the tree do a 180 in the air and crash to the road.
We stopped. Went back to the tree. Pulled the tree (what was left of it) to the side of the road. We drove into "town" bought some rope, went back to the tree (what was left of it) put the tree (what was left of it) on the van, tied the tree (what was left of it) on securely, and went home.
About half the tree was missing - all from the same side, which ended up being perfect because our house was really, really, REALLY small and we didn't have much room for us, let alone a Christmas tree. We were able to put it RIGHT UP AGAINST THE WALL and only decorate one side - there was nothing to decorate on the other side. So we were decorating away, and suddenly the tree tipped over.... too much weight on the one side. Hunter fixed that. He tied fishing line from the top of the tree to the curtain rods, which held the tree up nicely all season.
What was left of our tree, ended up being the prettiest Christmas tree we have had so far, and definitely the one with the best story behind it. This years comes a close second. (found pictures of this story, but don't know how to copy this text and make a new blog post and put the pictures with this, so I'll post the pictures, and then you can read about down here... I'm such a blog dummy - oh well.)
Putting up the Christmas lights is about the only thing that can make me cuss... I don't know why, I love looking at Christmas lights, but they make me so mad when I try to put them up and they don't work, you can't find the one that doesn't work... they all worked last year, so WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?!!! I got through the tree decorating this year without cussing... which is because I let Hunter, Martin and Steelhead put them all up. I busied myself doing something else for an hour or so. Yea! My critters didn't learn any new cuss words this Christmas! :)
We have a tiny fake Christmas tree that I thought Lemur would have fun playing with. He took all the ornaments off, then spent a long, long time putting them in this can, taking them out, putting them in, taking them out. (that is very Montessori... young children this age - and even up to age 4 or 5 will spontaneously move objects from right to left, and left to right. The repetitive motion is soooo good for their brains. Give a young child a few objects (pomp poms, beads, marbles - be careful of choking) and a couple of containers. Show them how to transfer the objects from one to the other, and let them at it.)
Doing some serious decorating!
Some of the elves that are running around our barn.
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