Due to technical issues, See photos here.
Our Chirstmas tree -- the first for the Buffalo-Taylor family -- is oddly perfect.
It's just not our thing. We procrastinate, and then we come through in the end with somewhat modified (some would say half-assed) results.
At Halloween, for instance, we bought one small pumpkin, never carved it, bought Cole a pajamas costume and took him trick-or-treating to one house (though really that was his decision, owing to the tantrum he threw over the whole thing).
This time, it almost magically worked out in our favor. It's a Christmas miracle.
Just 6 days before Christmas, we finally make it to buy a Christmas tree. We find a lot close to our house that is slashing prices on the last weekend day before the big day. We pay $25 for a full, well-shaped fraser fir that the guy cuts to height and carries and ties to the roof of our car. He even throws in a free wreath.
Ronnie and his dad, who helpfully came along with Ronnie's mom, get it into the house and the stand I have from my only other tree and get it straight on the second try. They string our cobbled-together light collection on the tree with just enough left to line the porch outside (just ignore the blinking green lights on the bottom loop -- and only the bottom loop).
We find an adequate $4 tree skirt. My ornament collection, such as it is -- one box that I reluctantly took from my parents and two boxes of Walmart-cheap shiny glass balls -- fills the tree to the perfect level of tacky Christmas tradition.
As a bonus, among the ornaments I inherited is a collection of character from Sesame Street. They pre-date Cole's beloved furry red monster, so I did go buy an Elmo ornament to round out the set.
I was worried that Cole would just maul the tree and all the ornaments -- he probably would have a few months ago, and frankly the decorating process was not pretty (it made him really mad for reasons none of us can explain and we finally abandoned the job until he went down for a nap) -- but he is starting to learn some restraint, and mostly he just stands back in awe and shouts, "Oh tree!"
And then he grabs your hand and wants to bring you to show it to you. And he shouts "Oh tree!" again, and then he goes up closer, and starts naming the Sesame Street character he's starting to learn. And "Oh ball!" at one of the balls. Then he takes a few stabs at colors but blue is the only one he consistently gets right, until he gets tired of getting them wrong and starts calling everything blue.
Anyway, our tree is an oddly perfect endeavor and a source of light in these shortest days of the year. I was skeptical of the expense and effort, but it seems as if some sort of Christmas Spirit swooped down and smoothed all that out. And now I am starting to see how such annual undertakings start to take on a deeper purpose.