Four Trees!

While growing up, one of our family's traditions was decorating the Christmas tree. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we would get our tree, sometimes real, sometimes fake, and set it up in the living room. Then, for one reason or another, usually there was a basketball in the gym, we would all make our escape and mom would be left to decorate the tree. (You thought this was going to be a warm, fuzzy, everybody-decorates-the-tree-together kind of tradition, didn't you?)

For those of you who think I have somehow missed out on putting up & decorating Christmas trees, have no fear! This year, I have had the "privilege" of helping to put up and decorate FOUR Christmas trees! That's right, four!

Our first tree was in our high school classroom at school.

We began with the six-foot "nostalgic" tree that had been set up there every December for who knows how many years. The ornaments & garland could only be described as worn-out & threadbare. Charlie Brown had nothing on that tree! After about five strands of colored lights, too many apple ornaments, and a paper star for a tree topper, the nostalgia was completely gone!

So, down went that tree & in came the seven & a half foot garage sale version. That's right, it was from a garage sale this summer. It only cost $10, but was 1/2 off by the time I made it there. To be honest, it is the nicest 'fake' tree I have ever seen. The tree is prelit with LED lights, and looks beautiful all by itself.

We all brought in a couple of ornaments and some candy canes, and it looks great! We have everything from sparkly dollar store stars, to great grandma's old-fashioned bulbs, silver snowmen, and a wooden bell from Israel, and hi-hat soldiers from Europe. Pretty fancy, right?

A couple of days later, the house tree went up. This was another garage sale find. Sadly, there were no pre-threaded lights, and it was not marked for 1/2 off yet. Still, it turned out great. Charity has six strands of red & white lights. (Yep, they bought 4 strands of white & 2 strands of red & switched out the bulbs until they had a white, white, red sequence in all 6 strands!) She had instrumental ornaments, a mini spinning disco ball to reflect the colors, snowflakes, and glass bead ornaments. That turned out great, as well.

Finally, the most special tree of all was the tree in our 1st-3rd classroom! Remember the "Charlie Brown Tree" that the high schoolers turned down...you guessed it! That was an improvement for the little kids. They were used to a 3 foot tree, so this was a real treat. Also, the old garland came with the tree. When I asked if we should put it on or if it was too ugly, they all replied, "No! It's pretty!" Thankfully, they agreed to only put two different colors on the tree, instead of five! Everyone got to hang some bulbs, and we put lights all around the classroom! (We'll see how long that lasts. ;-) I guess we kind of got carried away. But Christmas only comes once a year, right?

So, to "wrap this up," (bad pun, I know), I think I have become a artificial tree aficionado. I have special practice in pulling out all of the branches to make them look somewhat real, instead of looking like they have been in a box all year. You see, you have to start at the bottom & work all around the bottom layer, pulling each branch up just a little & out...well, nevermind. You don't want to hear all of that.