the great Christmas tree disaster of 2008

It's been a long time since our last post. I'm not sure anyone even checks our blog anymore! But with Christmas comes new pictures and stories that I thought I'd share.

This year, we ventured to a different tree farm for our Christmas tree. That farm left much to be desired, but we ended up with a tree. We had no idea what variety it was, but it fit in our house and looked pretty nice. For a few weeks anyway.

Soon, we noticed a few needles on the tree skirt. And then we noticed that we never needed to water it. A few days later, we began to hear the constant dropping of needles whenever we sat in the living room. There were futile attempts to vaccum up needles. There was talk of taking it down the day after Christmas, instead of leaving it up until New Year's like we usually do. And then we started losing lights and ornaments. So on Christmas Eve, our fire hazard of a Christmas tree went out the door. Using the shop vac at 10:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve is not something we'd like to repeat next year. :)

Before:

The accumulation of needles on the gifts

After the removal of the ornaments and lights - most of the needles are on the floor

The needle aftermath

We simply couldn't be without a Christmas tree, so Mom Anderson let us borrow the top of an artificial tree. Pete rigged it to the tree stand with duct tape, strung some lights and hung some ornaments. It leaned a little, but it was a tree (with needles that didn't fall!)

Our poor Christmas tree is now rolling around in the backyard like a tumbleweed until we get a yard waste tag and the city takes it to its final resting place.