Holiday Cheer

Today I have to be glad that my readership is dedicated to no more than 4 loyal readers and very few other infrequent readers.

Yesterday was the big "Get Christmas Going!!!" day in the Miller home... I mean, THE WORKS!!! The Tree shopping, lights on the house, decorations, holly berries, pine cones, window decor.. You name it.

It wasn't such an expensive day because we bought everything last year, right??? RIGHT!!!! (Read in the Sarcasm).

After putting up everything from last year... We had to put in "what we didn't but Wanted to put in last year"... Two new strings of lights, a power cord, and various odds and ends later, we started on a new WREATH(?!!!)

The holiday's NEVER are without new additions.

So, the HUNT: (Here is where I'm glad my readership is small).

Lisa and I didn't have a christmas tree our first Christmas married... With a wopping income of $400 a month, and rent of $460, (Not to mention groceries, gas, and miscellaneous expense), we felt it wouldn't be prudent to buy a tree. So instead we bought 1 string of Christmas lights and made the shape of a christmas tree (with tape to hold the lights in place) on the wall of our one bedroom apartment. MAN DO I MISS POVERTY!!!!

On year two Lisa and I recalled the dreaded 6 hour hunt for a Christmas tree, an old Chidsey tradition that sounds neat until you realize that the Chidsey Family lives in Downtown SANDY UTAH!!!! We aren't talking about treking up the mountains to find the perfect specimen of Christmas... No, just trapsing in and out of the minivan going from tree lot to tree lot and arguing the fullness, price, and size of every tree in the lot... Only to finally get so cold you just "Point and Pay" so you can get your grumpy self back to the house and try to warm up before you die of hypothermia.

Lisa and I dedicated ourselves to the "One stop, HAPPY SHOP"... That is to say, we buy at the ONLY tree lot we stop at, and we try to keep "Jack Frost's nipping" down to a 20 minute ordeal (that includes cutting and strapping).

We made an exception this year by visiting a second, LARGER tree lot owned and operated by the same people as the first tree lot we visited this year... (Same ownership is our excuse for visiting local #2).

Still, at 10.5 minutes we had a tree picked out and we argued "Are you sure that will fit in our front room, Bill?"

"Sure, its the same price, size, shape, and fullness as the tree we got last year"

So, strap it, mortgage your first born, and off to hot cocoa we go...

When we got it into the house, it was 1.333 times the price, 1.333 times the size, and 1.333 times the fullness of last years tree... (Did I mention that it's GORGEOUS????)

So, I don't have a front room this year, but Christmas will be HAPPY anyway.

By the time we finished yesterday, I had the frostbite, the lights, the tree, the bankruptcy filing, and a WHOLE LOAD OF CHRISTMAS CHEER!!!!