Expat Magazine

Getting Picky with the Christmas Tree

By Expatmum @tonihargis
I have bought precisely THREE Christmas presents. THREE! I don't think I've ever been this far behind! It's a miracle that the two UK-bound parcels actually made the postal deadline but I'm at the 11th hour with the few cards I send! Have to get them to the post office today - barring nothing else happening. I can't even "get it off my list" as the nearest Postie to me doesn't open for a couple of hours.
Yesterday we finally got the tree out and the four big containers of decorations. We have a rather large (8 feet) fake tree which looks quite authentic once you spend about an hour faffing with the branches. It didn't help yesterday that the Ball & Chain was "opening" the branches out before attaching them to the tree trunk by brushing them all in one direction - the wrong direction. That necessitated another half hour of me pulling them all towards the outside of the tree. Sigh.
As I said, we have rather a lot of decorations, most of which I probably won't use this year. In previous years we have had two much smaller trees in the windows of the basement family room. They were the "red and green" trees, as opposed to the "white and gold" big tree.
Getting picky with the Christmas treeToo much stuff.
For some reason, both trees (pre-lit) gave up the ghost last year and I can't be bothered/don't have the time to run out and replace them. (Even if I could remember where we bought them.) And of course, there will be NO red and green ornaments on the white and gold big tree, so they're all going back in the box and possibly to the charity shop. (I'm sorry but the multi-colo(u)r lights and ornaments thing does my head in. Call me strange.)
Getting picky with the Christmas tree
Yes, there are two non-white/gold ornaments visible, but they were hand-painted so they're allowed. Only just. 
And is it just me but every year I swear we had more ornaments the year before? I know exactly will happen too. Around December 24th, I'll find another box of particularly nice ornaments but by then I will have run out of energy for the whole Christmas malarkey. Unlike most years, I have a strong feeling that I'll still be shopping on December 24th.
How you doin' with your Xmas preparations? 

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