O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Here it is. My lovely tree as it stood on Christmas day at 3:00 AM. When we first put the tree up it had beautiful gold bows all lined up in a corner about three feet off the ground care of my oldest. There were also dozens of mismatched ornaments scattered by kid hands. Those lasted about three days. A Monday hit and a group of two year olds had fun pulling them off and sorting them into buckets. When our angel was placed at the top, she stood up straight and proud. About two weeks later while I was plating lunch, the "triplets" tried to use the top of the toy box as a sled. They propped it up against the tree and tried to climb aboard. It didn't work so well. Ryan wanted to fix her, but I asked him not to touch her. Although slightly crooked, she seemed to be looking down on the kids as they played.

Notice that small red bag near the top? Yeah, I didn't either. It wasn't until I told the kids I saw something in the tree (referring to their MP3 players I hid in it) that my oldest spotted the red bag for Mommy. Sometimes that man of mine tears me up!


This beautiful tree was sent to us by our loyal listener Shawn. The gate cracks me up! The last time I used a gate was to keep three 11 months old in my family room. It wasn't long before the triplets figured out they could use their combined weight pry it from its spot. Next I tried using furniture to help reinforce the gate. It wasn't long before they were scaling it! That was the end of our gate phase.

I have to mention Shawn, I am super jealous of your gorgeous fireplace and red wall! I really do need to pull out some paint around here and have fun. Oh, and I dig the blue tree skirt. I love blue :)

And on to my FAVORITE tree this year! Andrea from Minnesota sends us this picture, and I have to admit, at first it confused me. It was one of those days where I was only half paying attention to the screen, but then it hit me - it's her tree! I will let her tell the story herself as she is the self proclaimed reigning champ of pathetic Christmas trees:


"I came to know my first pathetic Christmas tree when I was 19 years old. I had finally taken the plunge into true adulthood by leaving home and becoming roommates with my very best friend who was renting a 1 bedroom apartment. My friend and had both just been laid off from our jobs and had absolutely no money for Christmas that year. In an effort to be creative and different my friend and I took a tall house plant that I had gotten as a house warming gift when I first moved in, and attempted to decorate it. Unfortunately the only thing we could use as decorations was tinsel. When we tried to put anything heavier than that on our "Christmas Plant" The poor thing would tip over spilling dirt on the table it was placed on.

My next encounter with the pathetic tree happened in 2002. I had been in my own place with my daughter for a little over a year. I had just met and began dating my husband that fall, and this was our first Christmas together. We were given a tree by uncle. He had gotten the tree as a hand me down from one of his neighbors. We knew the tree was fairly old but nothing prepared us for what happened when got it set up and ready to decorate. The some of the plastic pine needles would fall off every time we place and ornament on it. Pine needles falling off is something I would expect from a live Christmas tree not from a fake tree. My uncle was not kidding when he said the tree was old. This tree was ancient. To add to the "antique" charm of this tree were the hand me down ornaments that were without hooks to hang them with. My husband, the creative man that he is, ran out and bought a couple boxes of paper clips and we used those as hooks for the ornaments.

Now we come to the lovely tree that you see in the photos. Once again we were given a hand me down tree. This time our tree came complete with missing parts for the tree stand. My mom tried to rectify the situation by purchasing a tree stand from a local thrift store. Unfortunately the stand she purchased was intended for the wide trunk of a live tree. No matter how hard we tried we could not get the skinny trunk or our imitation tree to fit. My daughter was totally heartbroken and had fears that without a tree Santa would not be stopping at our home on Christmas Eve night. The mom in shot straight into action. While my kids were in my daughter's room watching a movie and my husband was out getting more tape to wrap gifts, I got out all the construction paper we owned and got to work. When my husband came home and saw what I was doing and how hard I was working at it. He hugged me, called me creative and proclaimed my paper tree the best Christmas tree he has ever had.

I call all my unique Christmas trees pathetic purely for the humor factor. In all honestly there is something beautiful about each pathetic tree that I have had. The first symbolized my independence as an adult on her own. The second is a symbol of the first and many more Christmases to come with my husband. The last tree shows that a mother will do just about anything to ensure that their child/children have the happiest holiday possible."

I LOVE it! Thanks to the listeners for sharing their tree pictures!

- Sara