We Have a Tree!

I mentioned a few days ago that the tradition in my family was to put our tree up a week before Christmas. Since being on my own, there have been years with no tree, years with a white tree (do not ask - I did not buy it, I did not want it but it was purchased for me and I knew better than to say what the hell was my ex mother in law she thinking?!) and years with the tree up at the beginning of December.

I've noticed there are a number of houses in our neighbourhood with their trees up already. Typically, I don't succumb to pressure but as I walked to work one morning, I was thinking "why don't we put our tree up!" - it's our house, our life and there are no hard and fast rules that expressly forbid trees going up before December 1! This year I also decided to put up only one tree... Our house has two floors - the main level and the garden level (fancy term for "basement"). Primarily, we are downstairs but I've always wanted to put one upstairs. The year TroubleMaker was born, we purchased a small 4' tree to put up because I didn't have the time or energy to put up, decorate and chase a nine month old away from the 7' tree!

Anyway, I decided to put the 7' up downstairs... This wasn't "easy" - in part because I did not organize all the Christmas decorations as I'd planned to last January and because it meant removing, relocating and rearranging the family room to accommodate the tree, TroubleMaker's table and toys.

Seven feet of tree and 500 mini lights later, it is up! The decorating process will take a bit longer as I'm still planning that out!

November 27 and my tree is up! Yay! It's beginning to look a lot like the holidays, even if it was +9 with rain today!