Decking Griswold

Podcast Tuesday! Lots of fun Christmas and date stories for you this week...enjoy! Hope we can help keep you company while you do last minute Christmas prep!

Click here to listen. 

So I mentioned last week that we had to forego our tradition of visiting an actual tree farm this year, because weather kept us from stopping at a tree farm on our way home from our anniversary trip.

Kroger's "tree farm" {aka pre-cut trees leaning up against the side of the store} became our 2016 scrapbookable memory, and we made it fun.

Here's the thing: we really had no idea what that tree looked like at all, other than its height, when we bought it. It was all secured in netting up against the building. We could tell it was tall, but Ryan was so excited about our vaulted ceilings in our new living room that he was all for getting the tallest possible tree.

So we welcomed the tree into our home and took some time getting him all settled in his pot of water.

 That part was harder than you might think, because he was SO BIG, he kept wanting to topple, no matter how you arranged him in the base. Ryan Googled the issue and the common fix was to secure a hook in the wall behind the tree and then tie rope or twine around the trunk and attach it to the hook to hold the tree up. So yes. We have a tree held up by twine in the living room of our house. {Insert laughing/crying emoji here.}

We started to unpack the guy, and I have to say, for being purchased sight unseen, he is one full and good-looking tree:

 {Just so you can appreciate the height.}

And yes, that is Ryan wearing a stocking on his head, because we don't own Santa hats.

Like I said before, sure we had to forfeit the memory of finding and choosing the perfect tree and cutting it down, but we have never had a tree this huge, and we certainly have never gotten as good a price as we did on this one.

We felt Griswold was a perfect name for this monstrosity of a tree, and sometimes we call him Grizzy for short.

When I realized HOW big he was, my main thought was...we do not have enough lights or ornaments to cover this thing. Not by a long shot.

FORTUNATELY, my parents upgraded to a pre-lit tree this year, which is a first for them, and Mom, who knows my affinity for over-tree-ing our house, came over with a big shopping bag full of sets of Christmas lights. And those definitely came in handy. We combined what we had from years past with what they donated and had enough to light the tree. {This is the only tree in our house that has colored lights.}

Since Ryan had a vacation day Monday, we worked together to decorate the tree!

I'm not sure if you know or remember our tradition with the ornaments, so let me tell you! Since we got married at Christmas time, we received a number of "first Christmas" type ornaments as wedding gifts. We had also purchased an ornament on our honeymoon that we felt symbolized our trip. Those two things began the tradition of collecting ornaments to represent our story. We get one on {sometimes more than one} on every vacation, we get one to commemorate every big life event, and we also get one that we feel best summarizes our year.

I take pictures of every ornament and print the photos. I write the story of that ornament and the year we got it on the back of the photo, and then when we decorate the tree, we read the stories of the ornaments and remember the adventures behind them. I. Love. This. Tradition.

{This was the one we bought on our honeymoon.}

I also took some pictures of ornaments that reminded us of friends and texted them TO my friends to thank them for being part of our memories. That was just an impromptu idea I had, and I enjoyed doing it.

Ryan put the "star" on top, which is really an S Pinterest project I made a few years ago. He had some trouble with it initially:

He kept saying, "Something doesn't look right." LOL!!!! Got it fixed.

I filled in with green and gold ball ornaments, a little bit of gold ribbon. It's still not as over-the-top decorated as I would prefer, but given that it's an 8.5 foot tree that is quite portly, I feel we did well.

It's especially pretty at night, with the glow filling the living room. This past Saturday night, we had a slumber party on Mo and I loved waking up throughout the night and seeing the pretty lights.

Griswold may be huge, but he's a success!!!