Collecting Patina: O' Christmas Tree

I apologize in advance for the length of this blog post, but the experience was just too ~~exhausting~~ funny not to detail it in full!

So the tree is up, not once but twice and counting! Instead of going to the tree farm, we decided to go to Ikea. The lot was full of many balsam firs, tightly baled. It was a bit like goldilocks and the three bears. I would hold one up and Chris would say too skinny, he would hold one up and I would say too short. Finally we picked what we believed would be a uniform beautiful tree.

Little did we know, we had to pay for the tree inside first before we could take that bad boy home. So I left Chris (without mitts) to wait while I went inside to battle the line that is Saturday afternoon ikea. 25 minutes later, I found a freezing man that resembled Chris waiting beside 4 trees. He said, "do you still love it?", and I said "it's this one right?" pointing to the beautiful tree right beside the one we had picked out. He laughed, and we decided to go with the fuller option (still not sure if it belonged to someone else or not).

We managed to get the tree into Chris' car and home, which was a feat in itself. We then had to saw off some of the bottom branches and stump so it would drink water and fit in our stand. About an hour later, our Christmas tree was up (in a different location since we didn't measure our ceilings and realized there's a foot of overhang in our window where we wanted to place the tree).

I was a bit worried about the stand, as it was just a cheap one I picked up on boxing day a few years ago and seemed to be wobbling a bit. The kittens were very interested, but seemed to be behaving quite well. I had just finished vacuuming up the needles, and we were about to settle into our evening when Rex (Boy-Cat as he's affectionately known) decided to climb the tree, well she (yes I realize I just changed the sex of my tree) came down much quicker than she went up. There was liters of water on the floor and thousands more needles. Towels were brought in, and the tree was told to lean in the corner until we could get a better stand. So out we I went (someone had to stay home to guard the tree and shoo cats) to Canadian Tire to buy The Omega Stand, described as the "One Woman Stand" and "The Marriage Saver" this puppy is expected to stand it's ground and resist all urges to top over.

The new stand was applied after we treated ourselves with decadent starbucks beverages with whipped topping and a sushi dinner (reinforcements were required), and so far so good. The kittens have reinvestigated the situation and tested out the tree stand box, and all is well in the world (so far). Decorations are next, so you may be reading an "O'Christmas Tree- Volume 2" in the near future!

Here are some pictures that I believe depict the situation well (forgive me for not having one of the poor tree toppled over, I think Chris would have killed me if I grabbed the camera before the towels)!