The Tree is up

   With a  cat in the house, we decided to be cautious this year and put up the tree and let it sit, undecorated for a while.  The cat paid absolutely no attention to it. As an indoor cat, perhaps she has no idea about the potential for mayhem a decorated Christmas tree can be.  
    Today, after my husband got the last of his grades submitted for the Fall semester, we decorated.  It is a smallish, narrow, artificial tree.  A tree my daughter was scornful of last year, but is slowly coming to grips with.  I just got very tired of the needles which fell as soon as we put it up,  and the high prices for the nasty looking trees that were available when we finally had time to put one up.  You see, in this area, it seems f you want a nice looking tree, you have to cut it yourself -expensive, or buy it the day after Thanksgiving. We have no time until after our Finals are over to decorate, so we have had several Charlie Brown Christmas trees.
    Last year, I put my little foot down (possibly whined a little!) and we went to the home improvement store and got this tree.
Pros: paid for once
         no needles on the carpets
         narrow enough to fit in our tiny living room and still allow us to walk
Cons: no piney smell (Buy candles, I say)
          it looks fake
          we cannot fit all of our ornaments on it.

   This year we have the addition of many of the ornaments from my husband's childhood as we inherited some of his mother's collection.  Our tree would make a decorator cringe, but we have the very special family ornaments from our family, the special ones from my mother-in-law, the home made ones that the kids have made most years, and a few plastic red and silver balls to add sparkle.  No tinsel or garlands.  A star which doesn't light up since the one that does light up is so large it will topple this tree. We normally have one creche under the tree for the kids to play with, as my sisters and I did with  our creche when we were kids.  There is no room under this tree, so it is off to the side.  I am determined that nothing as silly as placement of decorations, or if I get cookies baked is going to stress out this holiday.  We will have enough stress traveling around the Eastern Seaboard later in the holiday, I do not need to start building it up now.
     I must keep working on my Christmas gifts.  Once again I did not start early enough for the number of handmade gifts I want to make to be complete slowly, so I am in my last week rush. Oh, and don't let me forget the teacher gifts!  (I must admit, the adrenaline rush makes it feel more like Christmas to me.)  So with Bing and Perry in the CD player, I  get back to work.  Hope this week is fun for you, too!