The Small Tree

 You may have noticed that I've been working on the Christmas decorations.  No, I don't think it's too early.  In fact, I would rather put it all up too early than after the Holiday Break from school has started which I was afraid would happen if I didn't jump on it now.  

Part of my motivation to get everything decorated was my Dad's visit last week.  He's single and doesn't really put up a tree unless someone is coming to his house.  This year he is traveling everywhere, so no tree.  I thought that he could share in the holiday spirit here during his visit.  Mostly he got to see the empty trees and all the decorations in the boxes still.  That's okay.  

The small (and new) tree was the first to go up.  While taking a quick trip to Walmart with my Dad, I saw this tree for $20 and was wanting a "kid" tree so that I wouldn't have to share the big tree.  I'm a little OCD with the tree decorations.  This tree is all kids.

If you look you will see that most of the decorations are in the middle of the tree.  At one point BG was reminded to put ornaments on the top of the tree, too.  There are no decorations on the bottom of the tree.  We hand strung some fresh Honey Nut Cherrios that will be fed to the birds after the holidays, if LG doesn't eat them all.  There are even fake presents, thank you empty Harry & David boxes from last year.

While school is out for the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm going to take BG shopping to get a few more things for the tree.  It needs a skirt and plastic ball ornaments because all the ones I own are glass.  I should be able to share with you the completed look sometime next month.  

I am glad that I picked up the second tree.  It's perfectly sized to be next to the fireplace with the stockings and our rocking horse.  The horse stays there year round.

All this early decorating wasn't without consequences.  BG put her hand in my stocking and quickly pulled it out because she felt a spiderweb.  While evicting our unauthorized tenant I discovered that it was a Desert Recluse.  It's like a Brown Recluse only the West Coast version.  Still poisonous though.  I really hope that it enjoyed the garbage disposal.