Tree Mishaps

It was a great idea. We pulled off the dirt path that lead to my mom's land in east Texas. I was so excited as I looked at all the trees, imagining them in my yard. And one special tree in our house, decorated with our hand-picked ornaments. Each one representing a different memory.

Kind of a wild tree, but it had a good shape at this point.

We chose four trees- 2 Sweet Gum, 2 Pine Trees. Dug them up, put them in buckets to transport home. And then we went searching the woods for the perfect Christmas tree. After a bit, I saw it-*the* tree. I could hear the Hallelujah Chorus singing, just like the Griswalds in "Christmas Vacation." I couldn't wait to put up our own special tree!

This is right before he dropped the ornament and it shattered into oblivion.

So we trimmed the branches; it was a bit wild looking. We hung ornaments. We broke ornaments. The branches sagged a little under the weight of the lights. We watched "Elf" while we decorated, and Ted made fudge. The perfect evening with our perfect tree.

Timmy was so excited to add the star on top.

Before bed, I noticed something wrong. The tree had fallen over. More broken ornaments and sagging branches. No problem, we fixed it up. Propped some magazines under the base just in case it happened again.

The next day, it fell over yet again. More broken ornaments. Now we had a gaping hole in the front where branches had drooped. All the lights sagged to the bottom of the tree. It was only December 3. I didn't think our tree was going to survive the holidays. My 3 year old even told me, "Papaw has a better tree than ours. His star isn't falling, and he doesn't have a whole in his tree." Sigh.

This picture doesn't really capture the crazy mess it had become!

We told some friends about our misadventures in tree hunting, and they laughed with us. A few years back, they had cut down a tree in the woods and happily decorated it in their house. But the next day they saw big black splotches covering the walls and furniture- spiders!! Man, I was glad that at least we didn't bring home any "friends."

Our lovely new, sturdy tree!

A few days later our friends called. They had won a free tree and were bringing it over! So we took down our sad treasure and put the new tree in its place. I decorated it without the kids "helping." No more broken ornaments or sagging limbs. Tree mishap fixed.