Ready or Not.... It's Coming!

I am slowly getting into the Christmas spirit. I do not enjoy the time it takes to decorate everything for the little time it is up. Part of my problem is I have accumulated so much stuff over the years I can't possibly put it all out. I do not like to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving and this year I got a late start for a few reasons: 1. Thanksgiving was a week later this year. 2. We were out of town the entire weekend for Thanksgiving. 3. I started taking down harvest decorations and shifting to Christmas/Winter the Monday after Thanksgiving but could not put up my tree until this past weekend as I had to wait for my parents to come help fix the lights on it.
The first year we were married we bought our first and last real tree. We have had an artificial tree ever since. It was not the wonderful sunshiny experience some make it out to be. So we never did it again. Our first artificial tree was one of those awful trees where you had to put in every single piece of the tree. The thing was enormous and I think I was allergic to it. It always made my hands and arms itch! About 3 or 4 years ago we bought a really nice 3 piece pre-lit tree. My mom (who does not believe in artificial trees) says it is the closest one to looking real as she has ever seen. It was a lovely tree - until the lights started going out on it. Last year my parents replaced all the lights on the entire topper. By the time Christmas was over last year, at least 8 limbs of the large bottom section's lights were blown out. I bought a light fixer gun at Menards that amazingly fixed 5 of the blown out sections. 3 are still out. I said, let's put the blown out sections towards the back and call it good. We will fix it next year. At this point, by the time I get it decorated, we will be gone more than we will be home to look at it. And we don't have any plans to have anyone over (besides babysitters - no offense :)). I now have 4 gifts under the tree. Shelby won't be very happy if she finds her name only on 1 and Morgan's on the other 3. In my next post I will have some pictures of the trees - 3 in all. The girls each have a 4 ft tree in their rooms.