Christmas Spirit

When Squirt and got back from Thanksgiving, we were determined to get a Christmas tree. The idea of getting one/decorating before Thanksgiving was strongly vetoed, but we wanted to get one quickly after because we only had a couple of weeks to enjoy it. Unfortunately, all the roommates were not available to pick it out, so Squirt and I jumped in the car and drove off to find one...and we had no idea where. We just started driving around. Eventually we called Rachel I think and then our friend Erin and we were able to locate a place that had trees...home depot. People do it differently here, you don't go march into the woods with your saw and cut it down. You just go buy one.

So, we did. We pulled out like 30 different trees and finally decided on one. We picked the two most indecisive people to do this job, but Squirt did well. I don't think I did because I didn't have much of an opinion but I should've had more, but it worked. The tree is super. The nice home depot man put the stand on it for us and loaded it into my car and everything. Then we went to target to pick out lights cause Squirt's mom had already gotten us some ornaments. But we also went to Michael's and got a few more.

We got home and I carried the tree in and we took the wrapping stuff on it (this is a real tree we're talking about). Squirt noticed that it was crooked, so then we worked to get it upright. This is a picture of Squirt frustrated because we put the lights on the tree and they didn't look right so we took them off. Then we put them on again, but they looked bad so we took them off. We put them on a third time and they stayed on but we adjusted them to look just right. Can we say perfectionistic at all???? Both of us, not just her :)

Then came the ornaments. I never knew I could be so particular about the placement of the ornaments, but if they're out of place to too close together they just don't look right. I can even tell you the number of times we readjusted the ornaments. But it looked so pretty when it was done. We had a great time. We were jammin to some Christmas music, it was super.

Ok, but then, we really needed to get the pine needles cleaned up because it was not such a good idea to leave them on the floor. We can't find the vacuum, but then end locating it and I start vacuuming and nothing is coming up. So, I UNPLUG IT, smart I know, and flip it over to try and diagnose the problem, haha, yeah right. Well, actually I did. I saw my dad do this before, but there was a lot of stuff wrapped around the turny thing with the brushes on it. So, I got scissors and started cutting that off. I got it all and then we noticed that the belt was broken...when you don't have a spare, that is not a quick fix.

So, we call our friends at the wheatley estates..."hi do you have a vacuum?" Uh yeah. "great can we borrow it, we need it pronto" Sure. "Ok, we'll be there in one minute" and we drove over to their house and got the vacuum. It was very important to have the needles vacuumed up before roommates got home. Thankfully the Wheatley estates saved us. We got the vacuum, brought it inside, vacuumed all the needles, returned the vacuum and made it back before our roommates got home.



Finished!!!! Somehow I was elected as the tree-waterer. I failed miserably at first and I'm pretty certain my roommate, Taralah bailed me out on occasion. I know my other roommates reminded me also. We must've picked out a hearty tree though cause I'm back from two weeks of no watering and it's still very much alive. The pine needles are still on and soft and don't fall off when I touch the branch. I tried watering it, but I'm not sure if it will do any good anymore, but we'll see. We're allowed to keep our tree up longer since we missed out on two weeks of tree-seeing enjoyment :)

Merry Christmas from the Short House.