Today the Christmas music we have been listening to since Thanksgiving finally got to us and we went Christmas Tree shopping. We agreed that this year we'd go with an artificial tree. Our reasons were simple: By doing so we'd save a real tree, sort of (our attempt at going green in the recycle-less NE), we'd get years of use out of it and the savings each year on what we'd spend on a real tree would add up. Plus-- the artificials look so real these days.
So we went to Home Depot and they had quite the selection. We decided on a 9.5ft pre-lit. It was beautiful!
As Tom went to pull it out and saw that the box was longer than our car he hesitated for a split second. As I offered to get a cart something shiny caught our eye... no it wasn't one of the twinkling pre-lit lights, but the hardware holding the tree together deep near the trunk. We instantly looked at each other and realized 'oohhhh yeeeeaaaahhhh, we have to put it together'. We looked a bit closer at the mechanical trunk (which seemed far more elaborate than any other artificial tree either of us had ever seen before) and decided that the building of this tree (and the predictable unpleasant unassemble after the holidays) would add a bit too much stress to such a joyous season...so we quickly headed to the outside nursery thankful for our realization and reminding each other how fun it will be to put lights on the tree ourselves.
We got the tree home and got it up and decorated! We had a great time! Christmas music in the background, the dogs sneaking drinks from the tree stand (for those of you who are familiar with the movie a Christmas Story, we are calling the dogs the Bumpus hounds)---we already know it will be a great holiday!! :-) Its cold here--cold and clear! Its not supposed to get over 35 all week. Its so great to see so much sun in the fall/winter. Something we were NOT used to in Seattle.
Just a little factoid about people out here... they go all out for the holiday decorations. We first witnessed this at Halloween and we wondered then what Christmas would be like. Today we saw a few houses that would rival Clark W Grizwald for sure. Extra large inflatable decorations (Santa's, snowmen, nativity sets with EVERY character etc) seem to be the big draw... which we don't totally understand, but hey, we are new here, so who knows----maybe next year we'll have a couple inflatables.
Kidding, totally. We will not.
:-)
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