A story for today:

I must be getting old...this year, as I lugged out all the Christmas decorations, I complained to Joel that I sure didn't feel like decorating! (Last year I didn't even put up the tree - gasp!) Through much contemplation I realized that my decorating for Valentine's Day, St. Paddy's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and especially Christmas was for my kids. Since my baby flew the coup almost 6 years ago...my get-up-and-go, got-up-and-went with her. Perhaps I'm just lazy, tired or what I hope to think is true .., I'd rather focus on the real reason for Christmas and not on all the fluff.
Thus my story begins with this tree..

Since the kids come home for Christmas every other year, I made the decision on the years that it is just Joel and me .. I'm not going to go all out on the decorating! When I talked to Joel about it, I told him I wanted a Charlie Brown tree that I could put on our little table in the living room and decorate it with a handful of favorite ornaments. He agreed with me. I found a tree on EBay and won the bid! (You can see it below)

Today I thought I would "fluff" it out. Being shipped in a small box, you would never know what was in side was anything close to a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
(For those of you that grew up in the 60's...remember the ratted hair styles that looked puffy in front but whenviewed from the back, looked like a rat's nest??) Well, that's what this entire tree looked like! After 4 hours I got the tree unwound and untwisted. Joel had to un- bend the trunk of the tree! (in order to fit into the box, someone bent the daylights out of this poor little fake tree). I really wish I had taken a photo of the tree before so you could appreciate the work put into it.

So here it is...ready for a giant plastic bag to go on top till I'm ready to unveil it for next Christmas. I'm sure I will be grateful then, that I took the time to prep it for the festivities.