Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

I made a decision last night to decorate the Christmas tree by myself after the kids went to bed. I decided on doing it that way for a couple of reasons.

First, I have Christmas Tree OCD. It’s a major issue. I like it MY way.

Secondly, I don’t like my ornaments broken, and at least one gets broke when the kids mess with them. (Remember this little tidbit….)

Thirdly, if the kids get to help with something they think it automatically gives them free reign to touch it whenever they feel like. If it was already there and they had no part in it, it’s less likely that they feel any ownership of it and might not touch it. MIGHT.

So, you see, I have very validated reasons for doing it this way. I also have an Elf on the Shelf to blame it on when the kids are ticked off that they didn’t get to help.

I proceed to put the kids to bed, waited to make sure they were asleep and got started. I adjusted the tree, spinning it around a few times to find the best side, adjusted the base so it stood straight up.

Now might be a good time to mention the poor decision I made in the choosing of this tree. We had planned on cutting our own tree down, but since our Big Blue Beast was left in North Dakota this weekend and the Yukon isn’t exactly mountain-road-worthy with this much snow, we went to town and bought one at ACE instead. I picked a pretty one. Big, full, green, perfectly shaped tree. What I failed to notice was the crooked trunk. The dang tree has pine scoliosis. When I pay $50 bucks for a tree (especially when I have 18 acres of trees behind the house…) I expect quality. Not a skeewompass trunk tree.  (Ski-wahm-pus…that’s the pronunciation of that word, it case you were wondering. Just don’t ask Webster on the validity of the word)

I spent an hour putting the tree together just so. The ornaments perfectly balanced evenly across the tree. The fragile ones up high out of reach of little hands. Even put my old “Baby’s First Christmas 1983” ornaments on.

My first clue of the oncoming disaster should have been the fact that I couldn’t get the tree to balance with the shed horns in it. I ALWAYS put our shed horns in the tree, because I’m a little bit red necked like that. But it kept tipping because the antlers are so heavy. I got over my disappointment and arranged them around the base of the tree instead. Which, in hindsight, was brilliant because the tines form a barrier for the crawling baby so she cant get close enough to get to the ornaments! Ha!

Finally, a (sort of) perfectly decorated tree! I set up our little Elf with a note and headed up stairs to bed. At 9:30…..WAY past this girls’ bed time.

(Sorry for the crappy picture quality. iPhones dont take the best low-light pics, and the kids shoved my SD card for my real camera in the CD slot on my computer....)

I get halfway up the stairs and, I swear, that damned Elf shoved my tree over. In my head I tried to make excuses for the sound I heard. Maybe one of the dogs just knocked the garbage over….no wait, they’re kenneled. Maybe something fell off the top of the fridge….no, I just cleaned that off. Maybe something fell off the shelves in the laundry room….no, it came from the other side of the house.

Craaaaaaap…..

You know that stilly version of the song, "Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree, why did you have to fall on me? You broke my leg, you killed the dog, you mutilated Santa Clause"? Yeah....that was playing in my head. 

Sure enough….my tree was lying flat on it’s face. Every single ornament thrown off. Most escaped being shattered, but a few broke (remember how I dont like kids breaking ornaments?) Even the LIGHTS all fell off because I don’t wrap them all the way around the tree, just across the front.

I thought about leaving it there. I came up with reasons in my head why it was ok to wait til morning to fix it. “The kids will think it’s hilarious that the elf pushed the tree over! And they’ll get to help this time!”

But no….my aforementioned OCD wouldn’t let me leave it. Using my Hulk strength that always shows up when I’m throwing a hissy fit, I picked the tree back up. I got underneath it and adjusted it as much as I could to compensate for the deformed trunk. It still was too tipsy to be safe around my kids, so I rotated it around to where, if (when) it fell, it would fall against the sliding doors and not on a child. I cleaned up the water that I had JUST poured in the base. Rearranged my antlers, then basically THREW the stupid ornaments back on the stupid tree. 

>>Insert big, exaggerated, irritated sigh here.<<

Now my tree looks like children decorated it. And it is definitely skeewampass.

And I don’t really care.

Merry stinkin’ Christmas….