Every year hubby walks out the door the day after Thanksgiving, gives me that knowing look, and says "Now when I come home I don't want to see a tree in my living room" Of course he knows me and he knows I am going to go out and buy a tree, I'm going to put it up, and it will be all pretty and decorated by the time he gets home. This year was different!
First of all I had been out Black Friday shopping all night and got home about 1/2 hour before hubby got up to go to work, so needless to say I was sleeping by the time he headed off for work. I never heard the words pass his lips and I am sure he was sure that he had no need to say it since I would be way too tired to go out and get a tree.
I headed for my in-laws to pick up Orion after getting up and on our way home Orion and I went and got our tree, we brought it home, set it up in the stand in the corner of the living room. We let it relax while we checked lights and set up the mantle decorations, a good 2 hours of work at least. We put the lights up, put all the ornaments up (another hour at least) and as I hang the very last ornament on the tree it begins to fall! Yep the tree stand gave out and the tree was going to land on top of me and Orion fully decorated! We're talking a 7 1/2 foot balsam fir, big full branches and she wasn't exactly light weight either! I caught her mid-fall because I was not going to let my ornaments smash and I wasn't going to let my kid get crushed. CUE THE SWEAR WORDS! I used every bit of strength to push that sucker back into a standing position and had Orion stand on the couch and basically lean on the tree with all his weight (which really is nothing compared to that tree) while I crawled under her and tried to figure out what went wrong.
Meanwhile Hubby hasn't eaten all day because the usual roach coach didn't come to his work and I should be starting dinner!
I try tightening the bolts in the stand, tree still wants to fall over. I try undoing all the bolts, turning the tree and tightening them back in....tree still wants to fall over. I grab the twine they used to tie the tree to the car and tie the tree to the mantle to keep it up while I start dinner because poor Orion is dying trying to hold up that tree for so long!
Meanwhile hubby is on his way home, grumpy from lack of food and not impressed when he hears that the tree is trying to fall over! CUE SWEAR WORDS FROM HUBBY!
Hubby comes home, he tries to fix the stand and realizes there is no hope, the bolts are stripped out. We take all the decorations off the tree, take it out of the stand, put it in a new stand and try to get that one to work....unfortunately this stand has a couple stripped bolts too and the tree still wants to fall over, and poor hubby is starving! Hubby canabalizes the first stand and between the two he manages to get the bolts to work and the tree stands alone! We ate dinner (that amazingly I had not burned) and then Orion and I took on the task of redecorating the tree!
The tree came home at 1 in the afternoon, she finally stood alone and fully decorated at 10pm! I told hubby that never again will he come home the day after Thanksgiving to find a tree in the living room! From now on, I'm waiting for him!
We'll see what happens next year LOL
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