last year i bought an orange tree ....
click over to this blog post to catch yourself up on the orange christmas tree story ....
so this year my family just seems all together overscheduled ... things just aren't happening for us ... prior to this weekend, the only christmas thing that we had really done was getting out that orange tree, plugging it in, and decorating it .... but that's something .... an orange tree certainly can get you right into the christmas spirit ....
so ... since our calendar is JAMMED ... i said to the family, hey, why don't we just have the orange tree ... we don't have to get a cut pine tree ... just orange is good, right?
well ... proverbial lead balloon ... no one agreed with me and girl.beck.artist was AGHAST ... maybe even a little angry with me .... i'm pretty sure she thought i was doing the scrooge thing ... i mentioned the no green tree thing a dozen, maybe two dozen times over the course of the week .... but when can we get it? when will we rearrange the living room so that it'll fit (we always have to do that), when will we decorate it? .... still , didn't fly .... mommy, we HAVE to buy a REAL treeeeeeeeee ....
mr.e.beck.artist, boy.beck.artist, and girl.beck.artist went to a high school open house on sunday afternoon and said they'd grab a tree on the way home ... but they got home empty handed ... no tree .... they didn't remember .. well, i guess we don't really need one if you don't remember to buy it .... uproar .... no, no , no ... we NEED a green tree .....
little.e.beck.artist came up to me and whispered, mom, there are 29 dollar trees at costco a block away .... let's go get one and surprise them .. and there you go .... my very own anti-scrooge cindy lou who says costco .... so .... off to costco we went ... and we actually took girl.beck.artist (the one most emotionally invested in the tree ) with us ....
three minute drive to costco ... tree truck outside .... snow still in the tree branches ... nice .... there was a good skinny tree standing up in a stand ... i asked if all the trees were that skinny ... mr.costco.29$.trees said oh no, lots are very full ....
me: no, i need a skinny tree so i don't have to rearrange my furniture ...
so .. we went into costco ( it was snack time so we made the rounds of free samples) ... we bought a poinsettia bigger than some christmas trees .... and paid for our christmas tree .... we went out to mr.costco.29$.trees .... and ordered one that's "not too fat" .... i walked to get the car ... the girls stayed to pick the tree .... i drove up ... and i laughed out loud .... the girls were standing by the absolutely skinniest, spindliest, narrowest christmas tree i've ever seen ... seven feet tall and seven inches wide with all its tied upness .... skinny, skinny, skinny ... it will not need living room rearranging! .... and it might just be a charlie brown tree .. it was hard to tell ... it was just so darn skinny ...
mr.costco.29$.trees tied ours to the roof ... not in the middle, but right on the edge, tucked in next to the roof rack .... it took up about a tenth of the mini van roof ... do you get how skinny it is?
we drove it home .... girl.beck.artist was a little defensive when i said it might be a charlie brown tree .... we pulled up .... mr.e.beck.artist and boy.beck.artist came out with scissors ... and laughed ... boy.beck.artist could easily carry the tree himself .... he could have juggled with it if he wanted ... skinny AND light ....
we took the green skinny tree in and tried to get it in our tree stand ... but the stand was too big .... so we found our old stand and it worked perfectly for the dainty stump ... before un-tying the branches, boy.beck.artist got the star on .... then we untied the string and the branches remained motionless ... the skinny tree was still skinny ... the branches did not drop down, fill out, move at all .... so .... we started pulling on them .... they have to come down some, don't they?
many ornaments later, those branches were coming down nicely .... our skinny tree filled out quite a bit .... but i didn't have to move the couch, the piano or the table ....
ready or not, christmas is coming .... we might actually be ready in time!
how about you?
5 comments:
gotta have green tree!
of course we won't. mil is allergic and i've made her suffer enough with the dog and prior christmases.so my christmas spirit says, she can breathe this year.
funny story!! now you have to show it to us with branches down and all decked out e beck style!! :)
our tree, the Walmart pre-lit variety (yes, really!) is quite skinny....svelt I prefer to call it! But it looks great with 50,000 ornaments on it along with the 100,000 pre-strung lights! I like it a lot and it beats the big old 8 foot things we used to have that were hard to light and decorate! Man of the house appreciates that there was nothing for him to do to set it up except direct me!!!!
Can't wait to see your skinny version; bet it is fuller than mine!!!! We can measure!!! :-)
Christmas like temps here....37 this AM and maybe freeze next two nights! Wind is nasty but air is wonderful for December. Great Christmas sweater weather1
hugs to all.....
Your tree story is one for the memory book. How cute. I'll wait for the "after" pics now.
Darla
that is a wonderful tree story! i do remember the orange tree from last year. loved it! we are apparently doing our tree in stages. we put up the tree and the lights last Friday but that's as far as we've gotten so far!
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