I had big plans to drag out all my Christmas decor and decorate the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. Now that Abby is older I want to make the house super festive and have things up all month long to really enjoy everything as long as possible. Unfortunately for me, I ended up severely sick that weekend. I did check out a few Black Friday sales for trees, we have had a white tree for the past several years but when we switched our decor colors from red/white/blue to red/white/green last year I decided I wanted a green tree. We had hoped to get one last year in all the great after Christmas sales but didn’t get to. I was a little bummed out that being sick I ended up missing all the trees for Black Friday… but I managed to convince myself it was okay, we really have no extra money to spare this year so we would get by once again with the white one and maybe find a green one in the sales. A little disappointed but content and couldn’t wait to decorate! I dragged out all the tubs, got the wreath on the door and some of my mantle decor out and begged hubby to get the tree out of the storage building.
That’s when things headed downhill. He went to get the tree and found that sometime during the year the tape had come loose and the box busted open. Half of my pretty white tree was now a very ugly brown. On top of that half of the tree wouldn’t light up. I actually cried LOL things have been so stressed here lately and I knew we didn’t have the money for a replacement and all this after not trying to get one during all the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Plus I’m just an emotional mess right now, silly thing to cry over but I guess it was like what pushed me over the edge.
We spent several days trying to figure out what to do, considering our options and trying to work a new tree into a very tight budget. I searched the Facebook Yard Sale Pages, we stopped by Goodwill, I searched online for deals, we talked to friends and family. We debated getting a real tree or getting another artificial one, we really looked at all our options. Hubby knew I was frustrated, I love to decorate for my family plus I wanted to use the tree as a backdrop for Abby’s Christmas pictures (yes, the pictures I haven’t taken yet and plan to use for our Christmas cards… lol I’m running so far behind!). He decided we would just get out and go see what we could find. He had already checked out Wal-Mart, Big Lots, Lowes, etc next on the list was Home Depot.
We did finally come to the decision to get a real tree, time for a change and we thought it would be nice. I of course wanted a fluffy tree lol so we got to looking at what was available. Talk about our lucky day, not only were the trees big time on sale but we also get a military discount, we managed to find the perfect tree for very very little! With the help of family members and great friends we were able to bring home a tree and now get to enjoy decorating! Now the fun part is trying to keep this thing alive! I’m terrible when it comes to plants, I think there’s a bet going on how long it takes me to kill the tree 🙁 LOL
Here is a picture of our tree last year, Christmas Eve after Santa stopped by:
Isn’t is cute 🙂 I love that we went to the more traditional colors of red and green, I love this look for Abby.
Here is our tree from the year before, when we still used red/white/blue. I went with these colors the year hubby was deployed, I wanted to surprise him with the tree since he was returning right in time for Christmas. Needless to say, he loved it!
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