Oh Christmas Tree

On Sunday, Ryan and I went out and bought our first real Christmas tree. Since we've been together, we've always had a Christmas tree, but it was a little, five-foot tree that we bought at Canadian Tire for something like $20. It was cute -- and I have fond memories of that tree, especially in our apartment where our cat Chloe decided to sleep IN it one year. But it's now rather tired looking. And we figured after two Christmases in the house, it was about time we got a proper tree.

So off we went, all the way across the street, to the guy with the sign that read "Christmas trees for sale". What his sign didn't say was "Overpriced Christmas trees for sale." For a tiny tree, smaller than our fake one, he wanted $30; for a four-to-six-foot tree, he wanted $40 and for a six-to-eight-foot tree, he wanted $50. Now, as we were tree-shopping rookies, we honestly had no idea how much one should cost. But in both our minds, and we didn't need to say it to each other to know the other was thinking it, there was no way we were paying $50 for a decent looking tree to sit in our living room for two and a half weeks!

We left sans tree. And drove over to the Superstore to compare prices. Well low and behold, decent sized six-to-eight foot trees cost $30. Now that was a price we were willing to pay. We choose a nice one, tied it to the roof of the SUV and headed home.

It took until Tuesday night to get around to putting it up (and yes, with two cats and a baby, we've tied it to the ceiling), and last night, I finally strung the lights. Even though it's not decorated yet, it looks awesome in the living room and I love smelling fresh pine throughout the house. It's been years and years since I've had a real Christmas tree and I've forgotten how nice it is.

Tonight we'll put up the decorations. So far, Austin has shown very little interest in it -- which is good because I'm afraid we'll be playing the "Austin don't touch that, Austin don't put that in your mouth" game for the next few weeks. If that turns out to be the case, all the decorations will suddenly have to "disappear" from the bottom -- leaving an oddly decorated tree. I'm sure we won't be the first family to have to leave the bottom foot or two of a tree bare.