I had plenty of excuses over the last three years, plenty of reasons to not get a tree, and maybe you can relate. I’d be out of town for Christmas, I didn’t have the money, I didn’t need one just to make myself feel in the holiday spirit, and a big one for me, there was no logical space to put a tree in this little house with the current furniture arrangement.
The house itself isn’t that little in the grand array of homes, but in all of its 1,350 square feet of glory, there just wasn’t a great spot to try and squeeze the kind of tree I’d want to get. This tree I have in my mind, the kind in which we should all be entitled, would tower over my head and brush the ceiling. It’d be the kind of tree that’s lush and perfectly-shaped and it requires a sweet 40 square feet of open room around the base. It would also accessible from almost every side, if not totally in 360-style, for no other reason than for allowing me to see all of my favorite ornaments in all their dangling, seasonal, moment in the spotlight. Last year’s mini-tree was a good step in the right direction. Mini-tree sat happily in the corner of our living room and was plenty of cheer for this girl. This space worked great for the mini, but a wider tree would completely block our passthrough into the dining room.
This year, things changed. This year, Santa’s coming. There’s extra effort being made to hide Legos and games and assorted toys from the ever-awesome fab.com. There’s an elf balanced on a picture frame, and the bathroom sconce, and the kitchen shelf, and on the ceiling fan for whatever reason. This year, it’s all out, holiday ornament balls to the wind, we’re going to make this house as holiday-happy as any 6-year old would wish.
We bought our first real family tree at a local roadside shop. It’s a shop staged as a farm, actually, one that hosts donkeys, piglets, goats and alpacas and makes the tree buying experience so much more special than going to Home Depot and picking out the best 6-footer. But for the record, I’d totally be down for another Home Depot $30 tree if it weren’t more about the experience this year, there’s something about losing yourself in a maze of Christmas trees that I think most of can agree is an awesomely soothing experience.
At the farm, we look forward to seeing these donkey dudes, feeding them hay, reuniting like we’re best friends. Terrible iPhone photo warning:
Goatman was even close to smoochin’ Pete. They stared at each other inquisitively for minutes on end. This wasn’t just a lucky shot.
The house, on the other hand, hadn’t expanded in square footage, and I was left with no other choice but to totally re-organize some things to make a tree fit. It’s not the perfect fit, mind you, nor the perfect picture below (because apparently I never photographed this odd corner of our living room) but I mentioned in yesterday’s video that the proportions of our living room leave a lot to be desired and limit how we can functionally arrange furniture. What I’m saying is, while you won’t be able to walk around it to adore all the adornments, I still found pretty great playground for all of Santa’s goods.
That shelf stuck in the corner beneath the frames? Be gone with your bad self.
I scooched it over here. Actually, aside from blocking the heater, it works strangely well in its temp locale.
Side note: That’s right, those are loads of Disney VHS tapes. The quality is terrible on our hi-def TV but they still make for good, classic entertainment, and J really enjoys seeing videos that the rest of the modern world thinks, for all intents and purposes, are still in “the vault”.
We brought the tree home on Sunday night, and spent all of last night decorating it to the 9’s, complete with last year’s DIY floorboard star and a larger hodge podge of ornaments from our combined years of tree decorating. I picked up another few yards of the same faux-fur that I used with last year’s mini-tree and fashioned a quick under-tree skirt to make it all cozy at home. I’ll let you know how that came to be in tomorrow’s post, along with an overview of some of our newest ornament babies.
This tree, it glows.
Doing any special rearranging this year in your own home?
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