Oh, Christmas Tree

So, I decided that this past weekend was THE weekend. It was time to get our Christmas tree. After much debate, we decided we would go the "real" route once again. So, we all got in the car and headed to Ikea, one of the places to find a tree. From there, the Christmas spirit went downhill. They had their trees sorted according to height. The only problem was that the trees were wrapped up in netting so you couldn't really see what they look like. We just had to pick according to height. Once we made our selection, they cut the netting loose for us to see the tree. HORRORS! Seems that all of the trees being sold at Ikea and 3 other lots we peeked at had beautiful full bottom halves, but scrawny branchless top halves. I wasn't thrilled; Brandon reminded me that we are in the Czech Republic and this is the way it is. He then presented me with two options: "You wanna look somewhere else?" and "You wanna fake tree?" Feeling flustered and unwilling to haul Lydia all over on a tree hunting expedition I said, "It's fine. Just get it. I'll deal with it." We paid $30 for our scraggly tree and bought some loose evergreen boughs as well. We then went grocery shopping in grumpy silence. "I'm going to get the bread". "I'm getting the milk" (grumble grumble). This wasn't the way I had envisioned this evening! We got our tree home and, determined to make the best of things, I set about grafting the loose boughs onto the branchless upper half. (I call myself the "Tree Whisperer".) All in all, the end result is not too shabby. Add a couple hundred lights and some ornaments, and botta boom, botta bing... you've got a "perfect" Christmas tree. We'll keep our fingers crossed that the top half of our tree doesn't die before the bottom!!!