This is our before Christmas tree picture, a lovely 6 1/2 foot wonder who is fresh and fragrant all for around $30. I've become a bargain tree shopper and I'll explain why. About 8 years ago while living in Atlanta, I spent $80 for a 6 foot tree at a lot that looked almost like a winter wonderland. I got caught up in the whole thing. When it began to lose a lot of needles on day #4, I vowed to never spend that kind of money on a tree again.
Disappointed and $80 buck gone, the next year I gathered my nerve and hit Big Lots for the fakest of the fake trees. You know the kind; tacked together with pipecleaners in three sections that you have to wedge together. It looked like a pitiful thing, worse than Charlie Brown. That tree lasted approximately 2 1/2 years. By the third year it was on its last 'leg' and ended up crashing to the ground one quiet December morning as I laid in bed snoring and dreaming of sugar plums and presents. The weight of my bulbous glass ornaments proved too heavy for this scrawny tree and my toes weren't prepared to have glass splicing through them at the crack of dawn. What a mess.
One year I went without and found myself so sad to not have a lovely tree waiting for me to light each morning and night that I reverted to a table top tree full of silly plastic ornaments that Gracie found to be quite charming and more inticing than catnip.
So why do I have this obsession with trees? In case you didn't know, my mother has singlehandedly amassed an ornament collection for me from birth. Handmade dough ornaments handpainted with my name and birthdate neatly written on the back from my daycare days. Without fail, every year my Mom says, "You made those yourself." Sure Mom. How about the footprint one with my name etched onto it. Did I know how to write when I was 6 months old? Luckily, my mom just keeps adding to this collection each year. A pretty impressive treasury, it would be a waste not to display them. I have an odd attachment to these ornaments.
Some might grab a photo album in the event of a house fire.
I'd grab my Christmas boxes.
Luckily I've found a happy median...an inexpensive real tree at the most chaotic and stressful place in the land. Yes, folks, Walmart. I'll save my rant on that place for another blog post.
Watch the transformation of our tree over the next several days. Larry was pretty proud of what we found, although he got a little saw happy with the front branches at the bottom. Maybe I'll just spin it around. Ah, the joys of a real tree.
Stay tuned!
2 comments:
there is nothing better than gazing on a lit up tree!
My mom collected all of our ornaments too and we still get an ornament each year. I now have all my ornaments now that I am married and the majority of my tree is made up of them. We ARE twinners!
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