Oh Christmas Tree, Your Glaring Brightness Amazes Me!
Having participated in two Thanksgiving dinners – oh yes, two; because Go Big or Go Home! – Chad and I waddled back into the house and set about making our house look like Christmas threw up all over it! Hooray!
Now the thing about Christmas decorating at our house is, never clean prior to decorating. Because we basically drag up a bunch of dusty bins of decorations and move furniture and generally tear the house up in the process of making it pretty. Oh sure, I’ll vacuum the tops of the doors once I’m up there on the step ladder hanging swags, but we always start with a less than sparkling clean canvas!
This year we decided to deal with the fiasco of the main tree lights once and for all. Several years ago we got this lovely, rather tall, pre-lit tree at a florist after Christmas. We were in Palmyra. It was so large that we could not fit it in our vehicle. So we paid for it and had Dad Matlick bring it in for us in a larger vehicle.
The first year, as we were taking our pre-party photos, I noticed a sizeable hunk of lights were out. Hmmm, no big deal. We just posed to block that section. Year two, more lights went out. We filled in the blank temporarily with an extra strand or two of lights. Finally we said many bad words and after Christmas Chad cut all those lights off the damn tree. The following year we put on the 10,000 LED lights. It looked lovely. And bright. At the end of the season, we decided to put the tree away with the lights on it. Which would have been fine, except the tree is four parts and wouldn’t you know it, the lights didn’t break nicely at each section. We made due and it worked out alright. Until finally, last year I had had enough. When it came time to take the tree down, I pulled off all the lights and declared that next year (currently THIS year) we would put the lights on properly and afix them and then screw you, Christmas tree lights you would no longer suck the fun out of tree decorating.
Funny, last year 10,000 lights was plenty. But somehow we came up short this time around.
So, here we are. Three days and 12,000 lights later, the tree is a decently bright beacon in our living room. We even went and got a lovely lighted star for the top. Look at us being right proper grownups.
That being said, neither of us were in the mood to start decorating the beast. So I put up the ferret & cat Christmas tree first. It’s much smaller and much easier and then I could say, why yes, we do have a tree up and decorated.
Finally, with no other choice if we wanted a properly decorated tree in our living room, we got to work. That’s one bin or ornaments up and barely making a dent. But quite frankly, that’s when we ran out of enthusiasm on day one of ornament time.
Day two of ornament time and we got the second bin of ornaments up on the tree. It was looking better, but by no means completely. And again, we lost interest. So much so, I forgot to even get a photo. But that’s OK, because when it was done, after bin number three, I did get photos. Not to brag, but it looks pretty darn amazing!
In addition to upgrading the big tree’s lighting situation, we also upped our game on the mantle. It’s a shame that it is in the living room, because it’s not quite the focal point I’d always hoped for. I finally put names on the pets’ stockings and then added some fabric. So it’s really very voluptuously Victorian over-the-top in such a lovely way. It makes me squeal when I gaze upon it.
So there we are. Almost nearly done with the decorating. Still a few bits and pieces here and there.
chris on November 30th 2015 in Family