The MOAT.

The Mother Of All Trees.

On a crazy whim, we decided to get a live Christmas tree this year.

Dropped a ton of money at Target getting lights (our fake tree was pre-strung) and a stand and a cheesy skirt. It should be noted that I believe, in my heart, that children need to have loud, gaudy and garish Christmas trees. I let my children decorate our tree, so once it's done, all our ornaments are in a small wad about two feet off the ground. Last year Bug chose a silver star with crystals hanging off of it that, when lit, can be seen from space. So we picked out multicolored faceted pearl lights, 210 of them.

Then we went to the tree place in front of the church, selling trees to benefit AIDS Orphans in Africa.

The $35 trees looked anemic. So I sent SuperG to the ATM, because my sights were on the $50-$75 trees.

I found one that looked like our cat, Mo, because it was big and fat. We decided if we were dropping $75, we better get our money's worth.

My first inkling of trouble was when they tried to net the tree for transport.

and tried,


AND TRIED.....


UNTIL.........

SUCCESS!!!!!

So then we loaded said tree up onto the top of the Hulking MiniVan of Death and happily headed home.

I'd like to say in my defense right now that it DID NOT LOOK THAT BIG IN THE WILD.

But when you domesticate a tree like that, sometimes, it just takes over your house:




The view from the couch:




Since it has been raining for 2 days, we are going to let MOAT dry out, and then decorate her this week.

The house smells lovely, but I think I'm going to need more lights..........

~~~~ I've been asked why we put the tree in the middle of the room. It is not, in point of fact, PUT in the middle of the room, the branches bend a bit at the wall and into the window. The tree just FLOWS INTO the middle of the room. I secretly wonder if we wake up in the morning, will it have continued to grow, thus putting us up in the sky with the Giant, the singing Harp and the Goose that laid the Golden Eggs?~~~