Did THAT just happen?

 I love "real", fresh cut Christmas Trees, BUT I am not patient when it comes to going to get one....so YEARS ago, I bought into the "ease of the trees", and got some "fake" trees....that way I could put them up when I wanted, leave them up as long as I wanted, avoid vacuuming up pine needles for a year and cleaning sap from the floors. I've adored my fake tree's but have always missed the smell of the REAL pinion pines that fragrant the air of my home for the Christmas season. The year Cameron wanted a real tree, I told him if he wanted to go and get one, he could...I would be fine with that. (Honestly, I expecting him to NOT want to journey to the mountains to chop a tree down)....two days later we had a gorgeous tree adorning our house. I took hours and wound the lights back and forth across the tree (it sat in a corner and was TOO big to go around and around with the lights). Halle and I spent an evening decorating the tree with all the "homemade" family ornaments from years past....AND THEN we scrounged for old tree balls because the tree still looked barren (yes, it is LARGE). The end result was BEAUTIFUL (at least to us). We turned on the lights and watched old sappy Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel....all was well...UNTIL..........

...two days later, I went to the store...I was gone for an hour...came home to 

THIS..........

a DOWN TREE!! 

We don't have any pets in the house that would knock it down, no one else was home....I was baffled! I thought maybe the screws from the tree stand had come undone, or that maybe the tree stand BROKE...NOPE, nothing explained the crash of my evergreen. I sat and stared in amazement, didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Deron came down from his office (he works from home) and helped me pick it up (tree stand was STILL attached) and put it back where it originally was. The ornaments scattered the floor, the lights lay mostly in a heap on the floor and all I could see was "MORE WORK". Decorating a tree once is fun, relaxing and enjoyable. Decorating the same tree AGAIN...not so much!!

 I HATE to wrap lights on trees....the worst job ever!...so having to untangle 10 strands of lights and THEN RE-WRAP the tree was difficult. Part of me ( A VERY LARGE PART OF ME) just wanted to drag the tree out of the house, along with the ornaments that were still attached and call it "GOOD RIDDENCE", but because Cameron took the time and was thoughtful enough to go and get this beauty, I decided I would spend the day RE-DECORATING it so it would be dressed when he got home from work.

The lights took approximately 2 hours to untangle and wrap....only to find out that NOW 2 strands no longer worked. I am one that likes ALOT of lights, ALOT of decorations....its not complete unless the entire tree lights up. I scrounged through some boxes and fell upon 2 more strands of lights (whew) and got my 10 strands back on the tree. 

After 3.5 hours of decorating...our REAL tree was up and lit again.................she is NOW tied to the wall, she shouldn't be going anywhere until we are ready for her to come down (but then it will be OUR decision). She is one of my favorite trees ever!