Oh, Christmas Tree...

Last Sunday, after church, we were planning to deal with the Christmas Tree situation. We were still up in the air on whether we were going to get a real tree or a fake one. Both options had pluses and minuses.

The major minus for getting a real tree being that all 5 feet of me was going to have to get a tree up on top of our SUV, drive it home, get it down, and set it up.

The major minus for getting a fake tree being we have not one inch of storage space in this apartment for a big fat Christmas tree box!

So, we were coming home from church, which went very well last weekend :) And we were talking about it. As usual, M was of sound mind, laying out the options, and I was immediately shooting them down, finding something wrong with each option. Then, we decided to drive to Home Depot. We saw they had 7 foot trees for just $35! Knowing fake trees were at least $100 or so (because now's the worst time to buy one, sale wise) this was looking good!

But, I was a little sad because getting the tree up on the car and off and what not is a man's job. Grr. I hate situations like this!! I was totally intimidated by this whole transporting the tree home situation (even though it is literally across the street). Well.... the guy from Home Depot tied it to the top of the SUV.

I was fighting off a little bit of sadness because it wasn't my man who did the tying, but I got over that the second we pulled into the Target parking lot to buy ornaments for OUR tree. (Last year's Christmas bush was a hodge podge, it's so much better this year putting our heads together and making everything OURS vs. mine or his).

We bought a cart full of blue and silver ornaments and garland and sparkling snowflakes. I knew it was going to be perfect and beautiful.... as long as we could figure out how to get it into the apartment...
This is the tree on top of the SUV, through the sunroof. On our way home from Target, I was literally holding on to the tree!! Mr. Home Depot only tied the bottom down. Thank God we only had to go like a block!

M came up with a strategy so that he could help me get this monster inside. I cut the strings and just let it fall off the car. Then I muscle-manned the heavy bottom onto his lap. I picked up the top and walked backwards as M pushed forwards and we brought that sucker into our living room like a couple of lumber jacks!! I muscle-manned it upright and got it (pretty much/good enough) straight, and we had a Christmas Tree in our living room!!!

Victory!!! It feels SO GOOD when we work together to do something that we technically should not be able to do. Nothing is better, I tell you!
Here I am with my lumberjack gloves :)
Getting lights on the tree. This picture is in major violation of a long standing photo rule we have around here which M knows very well... that anything below my waist is off limits, but I'm making an exception for this pic because it does tell the story :)
I worked my way up the tree...
Then finally, I busted one of 3 step ladders I have in our apartment out and put the star on!!
Michael helped out with the garland. I tried explaining to him that this was NOT Mardi Gras and the usual agreements regarding beads did NOT apply...
He did an excellent job.

He's much more of a perfectionist than me! I'm like, get it up, decorated, and stand back and admire it. It's a Christmas tree, it's a beautiful thing in and of itself. He's more like, move this exact ornament to the left of this particular light by 1/2 of an inch.... grr!!!! I do not like to take orders :) Hee hee...
Look at our pretty, pretty ornaments!
All done! I love waking up and seeing this each morning!

In the end we had OUR tree up and decorated and it was a sweet feeling of victory! I'm already trying not to stress out about taking it down the day after Christmas... :) I am my mother's daughter, what can I say?