The Big Dead Tree

We got our tree a little bit earlier this year than last. We went to the house down the hill from us like we did last year, one day after picking Tanner and Faith up from day care. It was a great day to pick up a Christmas Tree, the snow was falling lightly, we had to shake the snow off the limbs of the trees to see which one we liked. The kids drank hot chocolate while mom and dad argued about the various trees.

The guy had a new species of tree this year that we had never seen before. They were very fat

and round which Marisa immediately liked. The one she really wanted had no top though, so I refused on the grounds that they was no place for our angel. There was another tree of the same type that did have a top and after much shaking and deliberation, we had found our tree. We tied it on the roof of the car and headed back up the hill home.

Some things started to become clear about our out of the ordinary Christmas tree pretty quickly as we tried to put it up. It wieghed about double what normal Christmas trees weighed. This meant I had to try to lift it up in the Christmas Tree stand while Marisa anchored it in place. Cori was over and between the three of us we got it up (not straight, but up), only to stand back and see that it looked like it was about to fall over (for the record, it wasn't it just looked that way). So we had to undo it and start completely over. We were able to finally get it straight enough and got it decorated. To be fair it is a very pretty tree once it was up and decorated.

We had our usual snacky dinner with the Christmas music playing while we dug thru the ornament boxes and I gave each child their ornaments

to hang while Marisa supervised the actual hanging on the tree. This was Faith's year to put the angel on top as you can see and when we were done, we had a very pretty Christmas Tree, all ready for presents.

The other properties of our Christmas Tree species have now begun to reveal themselves. Starting with the fact that it drinks about 2 gallons of water a day. I am constantly filling the thing up. On top of that, I'm not sure what it's doing with the water because it's turning browner and crunchier by the day. There is a large circle of pine needles on the ground and it's kind of looking like a sad "hair club for Christmas Trees" infomercial. I'm pretty sure it will be like a Christmas Cactus by the time the 25th rolls around.

Well it was pretty for a couple of weeks anyway and we've already said that we're going to go back to the old stand-by species from now on for our trees. What is Christmas as parents other than the season of lessons learned?