My Tree

 

 

Three years ago, we relocated from a rented house to an apartment about 70 minutes south of where we lived. The apartment was actually larger- we went from 3 small bedrooms to 3 good sized bedrooms and 1 huge bedroom. However, we lost the garage storage space. That meant giving up a lot of items. For instance- every last piece of outdoor Christmas decorations, gone. And my tree, though that was easier to give up. It was a cheap one to begin with, and all of the prelit lights no longer lit up.

When Christmas came around, we weighed our option and our budget, and I bought a fairly inexpensive $35 white Christmas tree. I loved it. I couldn't believe how nicely it showed off our ornaments, and how pretty it was.

Last year, I was longing for a green tree again, though. A "normal" tree, that is. After Christmas, I found one on clearance- a 7 1/2 foot tall prelit tree. I love it! But, I decided as soon as I bought it, that I would keep my smaller 6 foot white tree. See, last summer, we moved again, and bought our first house. It's large- 4 real bedrooms, plus 2 rooms that could be bedrooms, except they lack closets to legally be called bedrooms. Plus a large dining room, a nook, a large kitchen, living room, and a family room. Plenty of space!

Right from the moment I bought the 7 1/2 foot tree, I knew I would have two full size trees put up this year. We put the new tree up weeks ago, with the kids doing all the decorating, as they usually do. It's nice, and I love it.

I lacked the ambition & time to put the white tree up, though, until today. Not only did I get the tree up, I also finally ripped down the horrible stapled valances the prior owners had put in the dining room. They weren't bad, but not my taste. They also had some blinds up in the large windows back there, but the blinds were all in various states of not really working. We finally were able to figure out today just how to remove those stupid things.

So, the tree is up. It had 300-400 lights on it, all clear, as a prelit tree. I added 500 more. 400 were multi colored (with 200 of them blinking), and 100 were solid purple. So it's pretty well lit. I had 1 extra strand of purple, and 1 strand of blue, so I put those around the two windows back there.

I love the white tree. I did all bright colored ornaments, mostly in aqua, purple, and pink, but also oranges, greens, and reds. I love, love, love having my own tree to decorate not. It's not all designed and perfect, but it looks nice, and it'll be a welcome site when we arrive home every day.