Yesterday's note said "Set up the Tree." I envisioned Emmy and I getting the tree out and all set up during naptime and then the rest of the family helping to decorate it for Family Night. We were given a Christmas tree from a neighbor during the summer. (We have been given quite a few things from neighbors such as about half of Emmy's (and now Abby's) wardrobe, a playhouse outside, and a swing set. I like to think it's just because we are a young family starting out and families that are older than ours just pass on the things their kids don't play with anymore. Whatever the reason, we are sure grateful!) Anyway, this tree came right after Aaron was born, so we just hauled the very heavy box down to the food storage room and it has sat there, in the middle of the room, ever since. So yesterday afternoon the girls and I (Abby took a very short nap) opened the box to see if there were pieces light enough for us to carry upstairs and begin setting up. Oh,boy, were there pieces! There were two long poles and then the individual branches were in bundles held together with heavy duty twist ties.
Each
bundle had a color that corresponded to a circle of holes on the poles.
We started to carry the bundles upstairs to the living room
and then I looked at the spot we have put up our little 4 foot tree in the past
and realized this tree wasn’t going to fit.
So we carried them back to the family room, leaving a trail of pine needles
everywhere we went. I started putting
together the tree stand which proved to be the most complicated part of the
tree. Abby was scared of the pokey
branches, so she and Emmy started playing in their ‘house’ they constructed in
the living room. Aaron continued his
super long nap, and I set up this far of the tree by myself in relative
quiet. Sometimes it’s nice to have a
project like that to do by myself.
Although as I put in each branch and fluffed them, I wondered if this
might be the only year we’d use this tree.
It was quite a bit of work! And
we hadn’t even put lights on it yet…
Aaron woke up and needed to eat and I needed to make dinner,
so the tree got put on hold. Brett had
told me he would put lights on it since I was really not looking forward to
that part. When he got home, dinner was
in the oven, the baby was fed and happy, the girls were playing nicely, so we
worked together to put the lights and the rest of the branches on the
tree. What I thought was going to be
hard and stressful was actually a happy family time with the girls helping to
unwind the lights and Emmy even helping to put in the lower branches. We turned the radio to Christmas music, and
we were so sad to have to stop to eat dinner.
After dinner, we decorated the tree for Family Night. We have continued Brett’s family’s tradition
of getting a new ornament for each family member each year. It was fun to look back on our ornaments from
previous years: the jingle bells from when Emmy learned to sing Jingle Bells at
20 months, the cast Brett painted when his foot was broken, the tree and
gingerbread man cookie cutters we got the year I was pregnant with Emmy and we
moved to our apartment right before Christmas and didn’t set up our tree (they
hung from our lamp).
Now that we have a beautiful tree all lit up in our family
room, I am beginning to get excited for Christmas!
2 comments:
That looks a lot like the tree my family had when I was growing up. It's a great tree - I'm sure you'll love it!
It's a great idea to bundle each color together - we never did. So it took us even longer to put it together, because we had to sort the branches first.
We had that same kind of tree growing up... it always looked really full, but took a long time to assemble :) It looks lovely! I just love reading all your posts, sorry I am a terrible commenter
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