Turns out, it's not so funny after all!

Ever since we cut down our tree on Saturday the kids have been begging to put it up and get out all the Christmas decorations. So for FHE last night we put on the Christmas music, got out the storage boxes, and brought a little Christmas cheer into our home!



The kids were excited (aka bouncing off the walls) and there was the normal arguing of who gets to do what and put which cherished ornament on the tree.

We set out the decorations and started hanging the candy canes....

a few didn't quite make it to the tree!

I handed out the ornaments while the kids put them on the tree...a side note about our tree: after seven years of cutting down our own tree in the forest and searching for the perfect one, we have learned by experience through countless hours of searching that there isn't a "perfect" tree out in the forest. In the tree farm lot, yes, but out in the forest, no. Each one has a slight imperfection whether it be a bare spot, a split trunk, or a bad side. We have found that we love it no matter what it's imperfection, simply because it is the one we picked.

The tree we picked this year (in less than 30 minutes!) is a typical forest-grown tree: one beautiful side and one very not-so-beautiful side (somewhat bare). Since we always put our tree in our bay window we have found that we can hide the imperfection towards the window and we don't ever see it: very convenient.

We gave instructions to the older ones to decorate up high so the shorter ones could decorate at their eye-level. I really didn't pay much attention to the tree...or the distribution of the ornaments until there was a big crash!



It turns out that if you have a bare spot (light side) in your tree and you put most of the ornaments on the pretty side (heavy side), your tree will become severely lopsided and the inevitable will happen...followed by many hours of cleaning up the water that spilled, re-doing the stand (turns out those pokey spikes in the bottom of the stand that get covered in pitch year after year until you can't even see them...are NECESSARY), re-situating lights, picking up ornaments, re-distributing them on the tree (taking care to not neglect the bare spot, and then comes the fun of picking out pine needles from your long shag area rug one by one.



By midnight our tree was restored to it's previous beauty...although it is still lopsided (notice how the stand appears off-center). We step by it lightly and anyone who dares touch it is threatened with their life!! I always laughed at the AFV episodes with the (obviously) challenged people who knock over, fall into, or stupidly stare and scream as their tree falls over. Turns out, it's really not that funny!