Christmas Tree: Real of Fake?

Sorry for posting so late in the day. I had this written yesterday, but I was using Nate's computer and my computer has all the pictures, so I couldn’t schedule it to post. Then today we had a crazy cool Primary Activity, so I was busy with that all morning. This afternoon I went to quilting class and after that I had to finish planning Sharing Time for tomorrow. So, I been busy!

Here is another post as promised. Complete with pictures! (I have til midnight! Ok!)

Marley took a Santa ornament off the tree and as I was about to get mad at her and tell her to stop touching the tree! The Santa ornament gave me a kiss right on the nose. I couldn't get mad at her after that, after all, Santa must have wanted to give me a kiss. Who am I to deny Santa and what kind of mother would I be if I berated my child for helping Santa?

The History Of The Nathan Freitas Family Christmas Trees:

Our first Christmas (2006). We had only been married for about a month and we had decided we weren't going to get a Christmas tree. We were living in an apartment in P-town, which had a pretty small living room, so there wasn't much room anyway. However, my mom felt sorry for us, or something, so she bought us one. It was the most pathetically decorated tree ever.

We got one box of mini ornaments as a wedding gift and we had each gotten “our” Christmas ornaments from our mothers but, it still wasn’t enough to fill one side of the tree.

Oh! There were Christmas lights but we only had one strand and it was the smallest strand of lights that ever was made. It only filled one quarter of the tree, and by one quarter I mean, we only put them on the front of the tree and they still only filled the top half of the tree. I’m sensing that you don’t believe that we had a pathetic tree. Alright here’s the evidence.


Our second Christmas (2007), it's hard to believe, I know, but we were living with my parents, so their Christmas tree was our Christmas tree. It was beautiful! (No picture, sorry.)

But that Christmas we also made our way down to Salina and Lynette's tree is so cute! That was the first year I had seen it, so of course I took pictures!

A closer look. So crafty cute!

Our third Christmas (last Christmas) we didn't get a Christmas tree. We left L-town for Utah, right after finals so we didn't really see the point in getting one. We still got our Christmas decor out and cluttered it around the apartment. It was nice…but, let us face it, a lot of Christmas décor is clutter, albeit beautiful and meaningful, but still clutter. (This next pic is of Marley of course, her first Christmas morning, in front of my mom's tree. She looks really interested, doesn't she?)

Marley and the Nut Cracker.

And this year, we have decided to stay home and have our very own Christmas. In that case, DEFINITELY needed to get a tree. We had the great debate and when it came down to it, we found that we could make a wise investment by buying a fake tree for the price of TWO real Christmas trees. After a couple of Christmases a fake tree would save us mula.

We hounded the ads for the fake Christmas tree deals and it came down to the dreaded (at least in our family) Black Friday. We narrowed it down to three trees, one at Shopko, one at Home Depot and one at Lowes. We have one rule about Black Friday in our family...NO WAY are we getting up early to go SHOPPING!!!! So we decided that we would sleep in as late as we wanted, which is pretty much up until Marley wakes up, and then we would head out after breakfast.

We headed out around 10 or 10:30. Risky I know, but what is NOT risky, when it comes to shopping on Black Friday? First stop Shopko and it was still really busy...very long line and TONS of people getting in each others' way. We made our way to the back of the store, found the six foot tree from the ad and found they were all sold out. However, we weren't crushed, the tree in real life was a disappointment in it's lack of size (didn’t look 6 feet) and luster (it was a drab green).

We waded through the mobs and made our way to Home Depot. We found the tree from the ad and I was INSTANTLY in LOVE, as soon as I saw it in its reality. It was pre-light which was one of our musts and it was a whopping 7 feet tall, and it looked it! It was a healthy green color and also had some perma-decorations - red berries and pine cones. It was SO cute. I think it was designed and decorated using complicated algorithms of mathematical equations because it was PERFECTION!

To our dismay....they were GONE!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

For one second I had wished I had gotten up at 4AM and waited in line for Home Depot to open its doors so I could run like a mad woman to snag one of these trees of perfection. And then I came to my senses and thought....maybe they will sell the display?

I left Nathan and Marley to guard the display and I RAN to find a Home Depot employee. I quickly found one and he said they were selling the displays. He called another employee over to help him disconnect it and load it onto a cart but first he went to get a flat bed cart for us. While we waited for him to return a woman came over and asked the guy, there to help the other guy, "So, these are all gone?" He said yes. Thankfully she didn't ask for the display, I really didn't want to see if the Home Depot employees were in the mood to see a fight for who was more desperate for the tree. I would have laid the smack down on that lady. After all it was Black Friday and it was the tree of perfection. See for yourself.

No ornaments yet, and the lights are off, yet it already looks perfect! All decorated and the lights on!

Marley helping with the decor.

Me decorating and the back of my messy hair. You're welcome!

Isn't it pretty.

We love you all!