A Tree

There is a giant Christmas tree in my living room. I'm not kidding. I can explain. Really. I know that today is November 8th and there is absolutely no plausible reason for my tree to already be standing in my living room, lights ablaze. But it kind of is.

We needed a new tree this year. After seven glorious Christmas seasons with my tall, skinny fabulous tree, it decided to turn it's lights out for the final time. Jer tried to fix it, but it was just done. My mom got a new tree and gave us her old one, which lasted for 2 seasons, but then decided that 2010 was the end. SOOO, I had to have a new tree this year. Yesterday, Colin went to school and I bribed convinced Jer to go with me to Garden Ridge to get the official replacement.

On a side note...I love Garden Ridge at Christmas! I walked in that store and almost died and went to heaven. I spent about 15 minutes just staring at the aisle of Christmas ribbon before I noticed that Jer was about to internally combust, but also trying very hard to keep his mouth shut and let me look. I was merciful and took him home, but vowed that I would be back, unencumbered by husband, to spend as many hours as I wanted looking at glitter.

ANYWAY, the tree. We found a reasonable tree (despite me trying very hard to up sell Jer to the 12 foot version..."We can just put it in the kitchen where the ceiling is higher!") and put the box in the car. Then we picked up Colin from school. He went crazy over the tree that was filling up all the space beside his seat. When we got home, we clearly weren't going to put the huge box in the attic, only to take it down again in a couple of weeks. (Yes, I decorate for Christmas in the days before Thanksgiving. It's more efficient. Leave me alone.) We had no room in the garage and pulled the box into the house, wondering what to do with it. Then Colin started chanting, "OPEN THE TREE! LET ME SEE THE TREE! OPEN IT! PLEASE! HURRY! NOW? NOW? OPEN THE TREE! TREE! OPEN THE TREE!! MOMMMMYYYY, PLEASE!". I don't know where he gets the Christmas obsession from! We opened the tree. I told Jer that we might as well just put the tree up where it is going to go and be done with it. I will wait to decorate it. So that's what we did. It's way too big for our living room. You can't exactly walk past it. It's fabulous. And then, of course I had to fluff the branches. And Colin wanted to turn it on. And the sun went down and the living room started to glow and I went to my happy place. And I left the lights on. Just for the night. (Jer was more than a little embarrassed when the pizza guy came.) And then maybe they are on right now. At least I didn't get down the decorations. Because that would be weird.

I am probably not going to get the decorations down this weekend. More than likely I won't. Maybe there is a 50-ish percent chance I won't get them down. I think. What?