Yes, here we are again. We're right on the heels of Thanksgiving which leads right into Christmas. It is an incredibly holy day for us, but we love to decorate and to find just the right gifts for people. We like to give gifts - in fact if I could give 1% of what I wanted to, we'd need to have a million coming in annually. Hub says he loves that about me, but I have to question it. I mean, we're on one income and one disability check with 2 human mouths and 4 furry kid mouths to feed.
One big decision: to Christmas tree or not to Christmas tree. Pre-kitty twins and doggies, we had a tree (usually live) in the living room and one 3' artificial one in our bedroom holding the extra special ornaments... the ones we got when we were married (a popular gift when you marry in December), the ones we get every trip we take, the ones we have for the first year in our home and for anniversaries, plus the ones for all of our furry kids. Needless to say it's time to get a bigger tree for those ornaments. BUT, we now live with twin kitties who have pulled down a curtain. There is no way they can be trusted alone with our special tree. The dogs... well, the year we got them we were only home for a couple of weeks before Christmas arrived. Last year I was stuck in our bedroom after some surgery so we had no tree. I do have to add to that to let you know that hubby got me a "Charlie Brown tree" (which it was officially called as evidenced on the tag) and my Mom picked up a small metal tree because I was so upset about not feeling like it was Christmastime.
So, I think we have to eliminate the upstairs tree. This is crushing - both for obvious reasons and because we would always leave it lit Christmas Eve when we left the radio on with Christmas carols all night long, so we'd wake up to it. It's also crushing because I'm not sure exactly how I want to handle a downstairs tree. Or other decorations for that matter. We have enough boxes of decorations to have every inch of this house covered. It's been years since we've gone all out. I've not been feeling all too well lately, so we're basically faced with the tree vs. no tree debate.
The pups would never be alone with it. They have not proven themselves trustworthy to be out of their kennels when we're not home. With our very open floor plan, they'd never be more than around a corner from us seeing them. We're considering an artificial 4' tree which we already own. But what about the other stuff. I neglected to mention that the nativity is a no-brainer and goes up every year without fail.
So, tree? No tree? Live (I'm sooo afraid that Casey would want to "mark it" as his own)? Artificial? Eeeeep! Help a girl out here!
