Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!!!

I look forward to Thanksgiving every year just like everyone else, but not for the same reason. I think most folks (yes, I just said folks), get excited for the food. Not me, I get excited for what comes the following day which is Christmas Tree day. For the past several years we go out to the tree farm in October, yes I said October, to tag our tree. We can spend all the time we want picking out just the right tree for our family without freezing our bums off for the potentially cold temps that hit late November. We did not have that issue this year, it was a beautiful day, warm enough to just wear fleece jackets.

We ride a tractor out to the field and find our tagged tree, cut it down and wait for the tractor to come by again to pick us and the tree up. We head back to the shed and while our tree is getting the shake and bag treatment, we head inside to sip hot apple cider and eat peanuts.

We head home to unload the tree and all the glories of the holiday season down from the garage. The place in our house is cleared and prepped ready to display our tree. Usually we've put a plastic yard bag down and then a towel on top of that, but the yard bags weren't in the usual place, so we just did the towel since we've never actually needed it. (do you see where this is going?) We get the tree in the stand and the lights strung on and bring it into our entryway which will be it's home for the next 6 weeks (until we dump it in a snowbank for the tree collectors to come grab it).

At the end of the day, Mike goes to check on the tree's water level and he noticed the floor is wet. REALLY wet. All the water that was in the stand had slowly leaked onto the towel underneath and was sitting on our WOOD floor. We get everything cleaned up, Mike ran to Target at 10:30pm to get a new tree stand and the tree is  happy. (line from The Giving Tree if you didn't catch on). Onto the next day.... I fill up the tree with water and I hear a weird noise, a trickeling if you will. Water was spilling again, but this time was contained by the towel AND plastic bag. HA!

Two days go by, I bring Owen to school and Reese and I are off doing errands, we return home for lunch and do you know what we saw? The tree on the FLOOR!!! Water and smashed ornaments were everywhere! I called my neighbor who lucky for me, works at home. He was able to help me lift the tree up and onto a dry towel and plastic bag.

So, our beautiful wood floor now has water damage in two places, our tree is tied up to the stair banister, some ornaments are glued, and presents are under the tree....how's your holiday season going?