Decking the Halls

The Christmas tree is now up and (mostly) decorated. It would have been up sooner, i.e., right after Thanksgiving per my brother's borderline obsession with Christmas, except it turns out he'd put his back out a while ago making it painful for him to stretch or bend. Of course, he never mentioned it until the day before yesterday, and I'm perfectly content to leave the house as it is, so now we're scrambling at the last minute.

The tree itself is at least 20 years old but surprisingly realistic. It's a 7.5 foot tall replica balsam. We think Mom & Dad spent maybe $100 for it. Assembly consists of stacking foot long sections of trunk and then attaching individual branches of decreasing length as the layers accumulate. My brother saves time by stringing the lights around each layer before adding the next one. Makes it easier to get the lights into the interior.

During construction, it even realistically shed all over the living room rug. I had to vacuum the whole area  . . . again.

My brother had to go to work after the tree was up and lit so I spent part of the evening decorating it. I went through two large boxes of mostly hand blown glass Radko and Pandora ornaments, most of which I had not seen before. I think, toward the end (and not trusting Mom's failing fine motor skills), my brother may have kept some of the more delicate ornaments out of the mix.

I have not, so far, run across any of the animated or otherwise disturbing ornaments from previous years but, then again, there's at least one more large box that hasn't even been opened yet (and possibly more still in storage).

And, neither we nor Neighbor Dan have put any lights or decorations out on our lawns, yet.