We lived after the manner of happiness: Decorating the Tree

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Decorating the Tree

November 30, 2009

We decorated our Christmas tree on Monday for Family Home Evening. It was perfect. I got all the lights on because it is now my official job every year if I want a real tree.

Here is the story of our first real fight as a married couple-it involves the lights if you hadn’t guessed. My brother McKay and his wife Holly gave us our first Christmas tree. They went and cut it down for us and I was so excited because I LOVE the smell of fresh trees. Well we borrowed some lights from my parents and we were set. Jon unfortunately didn’t know before he married me that I have a very specific way of putting lights on a Christmas tree-wrap them in and out around EVERY branch(it is my parents fault-once you see how beautiful it is you just can’t go back) We started the process but sadly McKay and Holly got the wrong kind of tree(they admitted it later) and our hands started to bleed from how poky and sharp the needles were. It was painful! I still insisted that we wrap the whole tree that way so we put on gloves and endured.

Here are some intermission pictures of Charlie.

Anyway after Christmas I told Jon I would take all the lights off the tree and put the ornaments away so he didn’t have to. I was at work and he decided that he would do me a favor and do it for me. I came home to no tree and a grumpy husband. I think I told him thanks although that could be disputed and then I asked where the lights were. “They are on the tree” So I asked where the tree was “by the side of the road” What! Those were my parents lights. You don’t just throw away Christmas lights! To which he told me we could buy more for a dollar to replace them. I was mad. I drove to where they had the tree drop and found our tree and was angrily unwrapping tree lights on the side of the road. Jon showed up a few minutes later and we both silently unwrapped lights from the tree while bleeding from the pine needles and fuming inside. The last straw was when I was almost to the end of one of my strands and it came loose and I noticed that the the last few inches of the strand were cut off. Ahh!!! Jon said he got so mad trying to unwrap the millions of lights that he decided he would just throw the whole tree away-lights and all. When he went to put it in the trunk of our little car it wouldn’t fit so he had to saw it in half to fit it in the trunk-thus the cut cord.

We talk about the fight every year and laugh about how crazy we must have looked to everyone who drove by. Jon still doesn’t think it is funny enough to put the lights on though-so it is my job. And every year he tries to talk me into just throwing the whole tree away lights and all.

To make up for all the writing, here are a ton of fun pictures we took that night. I know they are almost all the same, but they are just all so cute. Charlie was the only one who would cooperate as you will see in the following pictures.