I'm dreaming of a plastic Christmas!

I wouldn't have thought so.  Growing up, I fought strongly on the side of real.  When my husband told me he grew up with fake, I responded with a level of emotion that would have been a little more appropriate had he just informed me that he spent his childhood being molested by his local religious official.  But he wasn't, so it's okay.

Point is, I never wanted a fake tree.  They seemed weird a cheap and trashy, somehow.  And you guys know me, it's high class all the way baby.

But then, well, stuff happened.  Stuff like living in rental homes wherein we were contractually obligated  NOT to destroy the carpet with tree sap.  Freakin landlord Nazis. So we searched every store we could find and found one we liked, 7.5 feet and NOT prelit.  (We didn't think prelit sounded good.  Prelit sounds like, will burn out every 1-2 years like all of our other Christmas lights, and will need frequent and expensive replacing.)

Anyway, as we unpacked our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving this year, I had a thought.  Followed by, like, a bunch of other thoughts.

First thought: This is OUR Christmas tree.

This is our tree's fifth year as a part of our family.  We've had it a few months longer than we've had our cat.  Every year, we take the day after Thanksgiving, pop in the same Christmas CD, and assemble OUR tree.  We're actually getting pretty good at it.

Our family is a fake Christmas tree family.  Our kids won't have memories like mine, of wandering through a parking light fighting over the merits of flocking, of spending three straight hours trying to find the least bald side and the least leany angle.  They won't have feet stabbed by pine needles that have dried into tiny, sharp weapons and hidden themselves in the carpet.  And they will never have to worry about their tree drying into a terrifying brown fire hazard before Christmas day.  They'll have memories of pulling OUR tree out of storage, and putting it back together with family.  They'll get to have a Christmas tree up for a month or longer every year because why not?  It's not like it's going anywhere.

It seems my bias has become no less intense, I just sort of switched sides.

And to understand why, Let me show you the tree that stole my heart.

It cost 79.98.  I know this only because it's emblazoned on the box we keep repacking it in every January.  And once again, this is year 5.  That's already only $16 a year.  So instead of spending money on throw away trees every year, we buy ourselves and our child(ren) each an ornament that somehow represents the year.  Our kids will get theirs, each marked with their names and years, when they grow up and move away some day.  In other words, we may not have a real pine tree, but our home is filled with PLENTY of sap. Hey-o!

And yes, the trunk-stick-thingy wrapped in what seems to be a close cousin to pipe cleaners leaves a little to be desired.  However, keep in mind that I have been a super present buying ninja the past couple of weeks, and it won't be long till those babies are wrapped and that stick is appropriately hidden.

So now that we've entered the holiday season and my living room has taken on a distinctly Santa's Workshop-ish vibe, I thought I'd write a little love note to that big hunk of metal and plastic I've become so fond of.

Hope you all are enjoying your Thanksgiving weekends and finding something to love as well!  Also, I hope none of you got trampled to death on Black Friday, or got in the way of that woman with the pepper spray.  I swear, there are no amount of savings that I probably can't find anyway that would get me out in that lunatic mess again.  You people be crazy!