It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...errr, is it?!

On Sunday, the day after the baby shower, we decided to take our annual trip down to Pike's National Forest to chop down our Christmas tree Griswold style. Our friend Adam, aka Bacon introduced to us to this location to chop a tree down 3 years ago now.  He's been going since he was a kid with his family, so we always have him come with us. Actually he drives us too... sucks being the friend with a truck, right? Such a nice guy, that Bacon.

The mom's going in for the great tree hunt of 2011

We thought it would be a fun thing to do with our mom's, and it was! It was picturesque... snow falling...Bacon's country Christmas music play. AND we found the perfect tree too.... it had not one but two trunks and was roughly 12' tall (our ceilings are 9').  Of course it was us ladies (all 3 of us) who gravitated to this particular tree. When we said "That's it. That's the one!" Bacon just laughed/chucked to himself while John tried to talk us out of it. Guess the guys realized they weren't going to win against 3 ladies so John just started to chop...

And before long we were on our way back out of the forest with a piece of it that would soon be in the McG living room...

Happy Mom's
Note: Mama  Donna is holding a saw. Danger.

John and I are 6'-0" and 5'-10" respectively. This tree is NOT too tall.

Ho, ho, ho.... here come Santa and she's 34 weeks pregnant!

Hey did you guys notice that my coat is zipped?! So yeah, my old tried and true North Face circa 2000 still zips! Fits just like sausage casing.

Bacon is still not convinced

So fast forward a few hours... we got home with the tree and began the "trimming"... And by trimming I mean we wacked approximately 3' off the top and an additional 1' the bottom. See, told you it was the perfect height. Next issue... the 2 trunks. This tree is basically a Siamese twin with about 3" left at bottom where the trunks have become one, not the ideal situation for making it work in a tree stand meant to hold a single round trunk. The boys seemingly got it to work though, and it wasn't before long that it was ready for decorations! Debbie was nice enough to put the lights on while I got the ornament boxes out. In no time the tree was decorated and it was down to finishing touches.

We ate some dinner. Ooh'd and ahh'd about the tree, and then it was time for bed. I'm damn near narcoleptic these days, so I was fast asleep in 5 minutes on top of my iPad in bed, while John was still reading his book, "A Caveman's Guide to Baby's First Year." I wasn't asleep for long though...When there arose such a clatter. More like a "WAM! CRASH!" but whatever.  I shot up in bed and looked at John who yelled out "Crap, that was the tree." 

Immediately without time to soak anything in, we both went running down the stairs.

As I was coming two, I convinced myself that it was just an ornament that had just fallen off and broken (not entirely inaccurate, my totals were just off by a wee bit). In fact, the ENTIRE tree had tipped over. My beautifully decorated tree was flat on the floor. Ornaments smashed all over the floor. Lights dripping all over the place. Water (with sticky sugar for tree-food) from the stand all over the hardwood floor and rug.

Somehow by the grace of God it missed hitting the plasma tv in its tumble (I can't imagine how irate John would have been if it took down his tv too). While it was still sort of a blur  I'm positive the scene of John and I trying to deal with this tree could have easily been a sitcom in the making. He was yelling at me to put on shoes so I wouldn't get glass in my feet, as I stood there mourning the loss of my ornaments. I finally found some flip flops to wear, and then went into complete psychopath mode ripping every ornament still in tack off the tree as quickly as I could while John held the damn thing up. Misson accomplished tree undecorated in .5 minutes. Next up get this thing standing... and this was clearly easier said than done. After fumbling around trying to unsuccessfully tie it up (we had nothing to tie to), we deciced to opt for propping it up against the wall and dealing with it later (as in after we had slept). Then we had to deal with the floor and broken ornaments. Out came the vaccumm at midnight along with a big beach towel to wipe up all the water. Between the two of us an several expletives we got things sort of picked up.

The next day we decided the only way to avoid this happening again was to get some shims and add them to the base. Time was limited though we had work all day followed up by birthing class. Thankfully class got out early and John (with the help of Todd) was able to get the tree shim'd up and back vertical.

I'm happy to report that it's been over a week and she's quirky, she top-heavy, monochromatic, a bit asymmetrical, but above all she is STILL STANDING....

Merry Friggin' Christmas.