We finally picked up our Christmas tree... we tried to leave it later than last year (and the year before that...) as the trees start to shed quite a bit of pine needles... and there was that one year where it was definitely browning by the big day!
So, after walking around the Christmas tree lot at the local garden centre, my oldest daughter and I settled on two trees whilst we waited for my wife and the little one to arrive. When the other two arrived, we showed them the two the two that we had chosen... whilst walking around like we were toons from Animal Crossing! Somehow, I thought that it would be more embarrassing for my wife... but she studiously refused to respond to it!
Getting it in the car was easier than in previous years, as we were forewarned with our previous experience. So, my wife had taken the bakfiets with one child... and the two of us took our little baby car to pick up and cart back the tree.
There were the various boxes in the attic that get dragged out of storage once a year... full of tinsel, baubles and lights. The girls started unpacking those (none broken this year!) whilst I hunted around for electrical bits and pieces for the lights.... and good chunk of blue-tack to fix the window lighting.
... oh yeah, and I had to free the Christmas tree from it's bondage jacket! I think we managed to get a decently shaped one this year... lots of good branches to hang from. Plus, it had the proper sized hole in the bottom for the stand spike... my girls all remember the tree from last year where we had to drill a hole that was deep and wide enough with a hand drill in the corridor!... Messy... and a little lopsided!
Two of the lighting chains needed switches... actually, in previous years we just pulled them from the wall when we wanted to turn them off. However, my wife was complaining that this was too annoying to do! Thankfully, I had bought smart plugs for the off-chance that we would need them sometime... and now, my wife would have to admit that they were not a stupid waste of money and an impulse nerd buy... but something incredibly useful!
So, our window lighting... we'll see how much of it stays up overnight. It is all held up by generous helpings of Blue-tack! I guess I will be sticking it all back every day... but it looks okay whilst it stays up!
... and finally, the dressed tree! This year we had the whole family able to help out, so it went much better. The last year, the little one was just too small to help out properly... this year, she really wanted to do the star... but it was too high to hold her up there. Plus, it was a bit too tricky to do it. I had to cut off some little sticky bits to get the star down properly.
Anyway, I'm hoping that this tree will last the two weeks to make it to Christmas Day... it's nice to have a tree, but it does leave such a mess of pine needle droppings!
