O Christmas tree, O Christmas Tree!

Listen and you shall hear... the sad tale of my Christmas tree! Heh. Three days ago, my friend Regina Carlysle and I embarked on a Christmas Tree challenge. It was close to a case of the Tortoise and the Hare--with me playing the Hare part. For every two steps forward, I seemed to take ten backwards.

First, I have a large apartment, but it's full. So I had to determine a place for the tree, move all the furniture to another place--even another room, and then vacuum the carpet, dust, etc., etc. That took most of the morning. During this time Regina was... taking a nap!

Then, I had to locate the tree. It was in the closet. Now the house hunk put it away and that meant that it was at the bottom of the closet. So I unpacked the closet and hoisted the new tree box out. Sigh. During this time Regina was assembling her tree--a tree with lights already on it!

I read the directions and began assembling the tree. Since it was a new tree, there were a few quirky things I had to work out first like assembling the tree stand and sorting the tree branches by their color coding. During this time Regina decided to take a rest and wait for her daughter to come home to help her with the ornaments!

Ah-hah! I thought. I will put on the lights, decorate, and I'll be finished way before Regina's daughter comes home. Not so fast! Much to my dismay, I discovered that I didn't have any lights! So I had to wait for the house hunk to come home so we could go to the store and buy lights. By the time we ran out in the pouring rain, bought lights, ate dinner and returned home, it was late. So I conceded.

Friday morning I arose bright and early, checked my e-mail, posted an excerpt on a chat loop and eyed the lights. Alternately eating a breakfast bar and stringing the lights, I finished that part by eleven. Posted a couple more excerpts. And started with the ornaments.

That was pretty nice. I've always loved the memories of hanging the ornaments we've collected through the years, so I was enjoying myself. I kept an eye on the clock as I had a chat scheduled at noon, but still...

Then with the addition of one of our loveliest ornaments, the tree started a slow tip to the right. Hmmm. This was not good. Tentatively, I checked to see what the problem was. Uh-oh. The tree was on shaky ground. I tilted it back the other way, propped it against the bookcase and waited for--you guessed it--the househunk to come home.

One of the screws in the stand was loose. He tightened it up and lo! the tree was secure. Finally, at four p.m. my tree was decorated. I lost the Christmas tree challenge! But, it's up. It's beautiful. And now all I have to do is put away the boxes. Maybe later today!

anny