(N)o Christmas Tree, (N)o Christmas Tree...

2014 will be remembered in our home for many reasons, most of them good but Christmas 2014, well this will forever be the year of the second Christmas tree.

Insert Tree here (take this morning)

 After getting a late start on things last year and having a black cloud darkened holidays in 2013 I was excited to get a jump on Christmas this year.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving we loaded into the car and headed out in search of the perfect tree.  It took some convincing to get Will to even join us so I wasn’t going to push the issue and insist on a live tree farm but I’ve had precut down trees in the past and never had a problem so I didn’t even give it a second thought. 

  

It wasn’t really that grand an event: I found the height I wanted, looked to bald spots, gave the dude $50, he cut the stump down and Will tied it to the roof.  Less than 10 minutes later we were home.  We did all the things years of live tree having Christmases have taught us, used boiling water, added a little Sprite…screwed it in and we thought we were good.  If the way the house smelled was any indication we were bound to have a wonderful Christmas, the smell of pine smacked you in the face the moment you walked in.

Fast-forward…the girls and I decorated….fast-forward again…one morning I went to water our beautiful tree before work when suddenly it toppled over.  All I remember is screaming “it’s falling!” and heading a loud crash and glass breaking.  Then next thing you know I’m covered in pine needles and tears.  I thought that was the worst thing that would happen to that poor tree, but I was wrong.

Last night, a week before Christmas, the tree was thrown out.  It never took any water, ever.  The few needles left on the tree were now brown and brittle.  It was a fire hazard just standing there in the girls’ playroom.  I’ve been asked if I think the fall broke the tree.  Yes.  Yes, the fall 100% broke the tree; it must have sustained a concussion and forgot how to drink…we will never know what killed our tree (we declined the autopsy) but we knew there was no way we were letting the girls open gifts under a bare tree trunk so 2014 will be the year that we had to buy a second Christmas tree.