O Christmas Tree

There may have been a story floating about regarding last week's FHE and the putting up of the Christmas decorations.  I just wanted to clear up the rumors and set the story straight...

Last week Rick thought it would be a really fun idea to put up the Christmas decorations for FHE and it went like this:  (short version)

Rick hauls the ginormous tree in from the garage, scratching the tile floor, happy it wasn't the wood floor.

Girls are fighting over who can sing the loudest, and which Christmas CD we have get to listen to.

Rick puts the 12 foot tree together.  

Rick takes the tree apart to put it together in the correct order (it comes in about 50 pieces).

Rick plugs in the lights for the tree.   only 1/2 the tree lights up.

(there may have been some swear words)

Girls are still fighting.

Cole wants to help.

Cole dumps out the nativity.

Wiseman lands on his head.

Rick is still working on the lights on the tree.

Rick exclaims loudly that he is "done with this tree."

Rick hauls tree out to front porch.

Kelli offers 12 ft. partially pre-lit tree on freecycle.

5 minutes later someone claims the tree.

The girls are still fighting and get sent to their rooms.

Cole is crying because he can't help decorate the tree.

Rick decides to leave for work early and jumps in his car and heads down the street.

Rick returns 15 seconds later with a flat tire.

Kids exclaim that they are hungry.

Kids eat Chex Muddy Buddies for dinner.  and for breakfast the next morning.

Summary:  Hugely effective FHE.  One we will not soon forget.

But, just to clear the record...we do have a smaller tree:

I decorated it all by myself the next morning when the kids went to school as I finished off the last of the Muddy Buddies.

When they came home from school they all exclaimed:  

"Why didn't you let us decorate the tree?"

"Why did you use those ugly colors?"

hum, maybe next year.

And as I was taking these pictures, Summer told me that I probably should learn how to take photos.

She said that I'm so bad, that it will probably require taking a class.  Nice.

And we won't be eating dinner for a couple of weeks because our kitchen table is in the entry way where tree is supposed to be.  But, it's OK.  

Rick splurged on this train when we were living in Michigan.  I don't even remember if we had a tree, but we sure did have a train. 

We put it around our tree when we lived in Mississippi.

We tried to put it up a few years ago, but Cole would NOT leave the train alone.  

So, it has been on the top shelf down in the basement for a few years.

We got it out this year and put it with the Department 56 Village that Rick likes to put together.

We gor the first 2 pieces when we lived in Michigan.

There is a "Christmas Village" north of Flint called Frankenmuth.

I remember driving up there once when Sierra was 2 weeks old.

It's a little German town, but one of the big attraction is Bronner's.  It's about the size of Costco, but it is completely Christmas.  It's full of trees, ornaments, wreaths, and decorations of all types and sizes.  And it was then and there that Rick decided he wanted to collect the Department 56 Village pieces.  There are a few different types of villages and he specifically likes the Snow Village.

It was there that we picked up the house on the left and the house  under construction on the right/rear.

This year, in an effort to console himself on the loss of the 12 foot tree, Rick purchased "Friendly Car Sales" (the one with the red roof) and Dinah's Drive In (the one with the hamburger on the roof).

Rick has also collected a few pieces of Department 56 Halloween village but we have not displayed those for a while for the same reason...Cole.

On Saturday morning when Cole got up, he asked me what we were going to do.  

I said "Nothing" because that it usually what we do all day on a Saturday, right?

He said, "Good because I just want to sit here and watch the train."

I said, "all day?"

He said, "all day."

Here is the nativity with the wiseman missing his head.

This is our version of "Elf on the Shelf"

We made these a couple of years ago.

They are supposed to help Santa by checking on good behavior at our house.  

I hope they weren't watching too closely during FHE last week.