O (Kinda Large) Tannenbaum

If there is one very good reason for owning a long mini-van, it is this:  

You can fold down the seats, and 

slide your fresh Christmas tree right in; 

  no roof-tying insanity.  

Me, wandering through a
tree farm, looking adorable.

Nowadays, we buy a fresh tree from a garden center around the corner from That Old House.  No more venturing into the vast Jersey wilderness to hack down our own specimen, followed by a hair-raising trip home on Route 80, with me convinced we'd cause a multi-car pileup when our tree went flying off the roof.  The year the tree farm guy tied a giant tree on with dental floss was the last straw.  

Our tree, hogtied in the back of the
minivan, Sunday afternoon.

No, now... we don heavy gloves (why is it always so cold on a tree lot?) and hunt the local lot.  Here's this year's victim lucky candidate, fresh out of the van and wrestled into the stand.

Late Sunday afternoon,
blue light time.

Which means ... all of our trees are UP, faux and fresh.  Some are partly finished, others awaiting their balls and bling.  The house is a tip, with still-to-be-deployed decorations and wreaths and garlands and ribbons running amuck, everywhere, but ... there's time.  And as always, what gets done, gets done ... and what doesn't, doesn't.

Fuzzy phone picture, Sunday evening.
Howard decides to do the lights another time.

I would attempt to put the lights on the sunroom tree, but I don't want to get scratched shoving strands of lights into the tree's innards; I hate pain.

Howard is a boy, so he gets to do the hard ouchy stuff.  :-)

Happy Monday morning, Tree!
(The picture is crooked, not the tree.  That's my story.)

My Dad believed that the more painful, scratchy, and fierce a tree's needles, the better it would last for the whole season.

Howard has adopted this belief, and has the scars to prove it.

Today, the tree looks happy, relaxed,

and ready for its bling.  

Last year's sunroom tree.

How do you choose a tree?

Do you cut one down, or find it on a lot?

Or take it out of a box?

Just a dozen days till Christmas Eve!

And remember:

Ho Ho Ho!  -- Cass

Visit The Graphics Fairy for a mind-boggling collection of vintage art.  Thank you, Karen!

Christmas Primping

It was a working weekend for my husband.

We picked out our fresh tree at a local nursery on Saturday,

and hauled it home in the back of the minivan.

On the drizzly Sunday, up it went in our sunroom.

Howard worked, Dylan snoozed,

I snapped some pictures and, um, supervised.

This year's tree is very dark and dense, and it has

consumed 1,300 lights and still looks not bright.

But since we don't want to cause a brownout in the neighborhood,

we are not adding any more strands!

I began tossing the ornaments on the tree, and as of last night

I'd worked my way through one Rubbermaid bin.  Almost.

Lots more tree and hundreds of ornaments to go! 

Why is it so wickedly hard to take pictures of Christmas trees?

 I decided to take some pictures this morning.

But when I looked at them, they looked . . . odd.
Kind of cool looking, but distinctly odd.

Turns out, Anne had been using my

Nikon Coolpix camera, which I rarely use,

and had left it set on an "only find the red colors" setting.
Duh.

 So what was I doing while Howard was manfully
stringing hundreds of teensy lights in our tree?

 I emptied the Rubbermaid bins full of Christmas decor.  As usual,
the dining room is the staging area.  North Pole, New Jersey.

So things are progressing here at That Old House.

I am getting very into the Christmas spirit, getting excited!

Dylan Dog, however, is taking things rather casually.

As he sees it, his job is still to scramble for treats, be adorable,

perform dogly duties such as being a lap desk for Anne's Ipad,

keep us on our toes by testing his limits

(most recently: "Dylan, no! Don't EAT the tree!"),

and grab a snooze whenever the moment seems right.

Like, now.

So goodbye for this Monday, from me, and Dylan,

and That Old House -- Cass

Blog Parties!

At Little Red House, it's Mosaic Monday, so click here!

At Between Naps On The Porch, Metamorphosis Monday is the place to be. Click!

P.S.  Dear friends -- I, like you, have shed countless tears the past 4 days, in our national -- no, worldwide -- agony of grief for the families in Newtown, Connecticut.  Is there a remedy for these incidents in a free society?  I think the best personal response that I've heard, other than our prayers, thoughts, hearts, is to respond to this random violence with random kindness.  I'm not sure how I'll accomplish this, and this won't affect those at the fringes who perpetrate these monstrous acts, but it is something, and most importantly, it is the opposite of what was done on Friday in that small New England town.  And, I can celebrate the birth of Jesus, and still rejoice in that.