1) It started raining just when we were going to pick it up from the lot, so S got wet while loading it in the car and all that.
2) We leave it in the garage because of the said rain until one day later when S lugs it up to our apartment after we get home. It was oh, around 1.30 a.m.
3) Two days later he lugs up the huge bag of dirt. Apparently here they don't do the tree stands with the water container.
4) We pot the tree and make a small mess of dirt on our terrace.
5) When we cut open the plastic wrapping the branches, we notice that our 'perfect' tree is actually two trees. There's a siamese twin growing out one side. Oops.
See what I mean about how it's a nice idea? And the imperfect shape adds to the charm, right? I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a fake tree next year, but we'll see.
So Saturday evening after dinner, I threw a Christmas cd in the player to get the mood going and the end result was this:
Aww... not bad for our amateur effort, right? The lights are actually red sparkling LEDs. The lights took us only two different visits to Carrefour and at least one combined hour of dazed wandering in the Christmas light aisle. We tested countless sets of lights to see how they would look like and of course by then the ones we wanted were out in 'clear'. We're crazy like that. Actually by then the only lights left were red or blue. So red it was and actually they're not bad.
And I found my nativity set. It sure was a nice feeling... us, our tree, and Jingle Bells in the background. :-)
p.s. Can I add to the above?
5) At one point in the night, I went over to admire the tree and started shrieking. S came over to see what was up. There was a big worm wringling on the floor under the tree. I guess it had decided to get out to check out the new digs. Ugh!
2 comments:
OMG, you've been blogging like crazy! The christmas tree is super cute. Matt was trying to convince me to get a real tree too, but he said we could only get it at most a week before christmas because it would dry out super fast and I wasn't down with having a tree for only a few days!! Especially since it is kind of a pain to set up the real tree. Maybe the soil (and worms) keep it fresher longer. I do like the nice smell, but I said, why don't we get a fake tree and then get some real tree trimmings to make the house smell good? Anyway, I scoured the Internet and found a tree on sale at Target (with good reviews) and we headed there on Saturday (last day of sale). Sold out at the nearest Target but they told us which nearest Target had a bunch more so we went there and 'choped' the lovely 7.5-foot pre-lit slim cashmere pine tree :) Then I wandered around the Christmas section for WAYYY too long deliberating between which ornaments were a better deal, looking at ribbon, trying to decide whether we needed a garland, etc. Actually we got the same as you -- red and silver balls. At some point, M bailed out of Christmas section and I finally found him because I heard someone bouncing a basketball in some aisle. Must be M. Then we deliberated in the toy section to pick up toys for the adopted family, before finally stumbling out of the store starving to death. Phew, survived the annual Christmas trip to Target. Anyway, the tree -- is great! I love it. Three or four pieces just assemble together, you plug it in and...done! And actually the tree was so full of leaves/branches/pines that it didn't seem to need any ornaments -- not that it stopped me from loading up anyway. And it has cute little pinecones on it. And it is the biggest tree we could possibly fit in a small apartment -- 7.5 feet!! but it's really slim so fits in the corner without getting in the way. I think this is def the nicest fake tree I've ever had -- it has like real looking plastic needles, not just the strips of green foil wrapped around a wire. It was as nice as the $200-$300 trees I think, but we got it for just under $100. The only thing is that it's kind of bright -- too many damn lights on it, although I'm getting used to it. But M says he's going to get old-school big bulb xmas lights from his dad's place and we'll string those around as well so there could be two lighting modes -- bright or dimmer. The next day we visited the tree lot at the YMCA and asked about tree trimmings...they were like, yeah, take whatever you want from this pile. So we grabbed a few branches. But I still have to do something with the trimmings -- probably involving ribbon and shiny ornaments. And I told M that if one year we have tons of time to screw around with a real tree, we can always just leave fake tree in the box :) that year. Can you tell I'm super excited about this tree?
Anyway, Christmas, yay! This weekend we're going to visit the FLWright studio (free Christmas tours!) and check out the real-life camel that shows up across the street once a year for the live nativity. Do they have live nativities in Italy -- they must.
Hey, when are you going to write me?! I'm pouring my planning energy into writing now. :)
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