Living In A Winter Nightmare-land

I had no idea when I composed my first tree post that it would be my most read blog entry EVER. Seeing as I am still relatively new to the (consistent) blogging world, I am hoping that this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship with you, the readers. However, I am also faced with the fear that all my posts must now feature my arch rival, because that seems to be the thing that people really care about. Which means that I probably will have to live with this thing longer than I had hoped. Which is my Christmas nightmare realized.

I have gotten many request for "after" photos of the tree, so here they are. Better late then never, but there was a slight hold up, as my people had to work out an arrangement with The Tree's legal team in order to be able to publish this post.

So without further ado, I give you... The Tree! And some other holiday decor from yours truly.

enough lights to guide the wise men

So after getting the tree in an upright position finally inside our apartment, I was so... shall we say, peeved, at what a monstrosity it was, that I spent the first few days of our relationship in a bitter standoff. I tried to avoid looking at it, but it was impossible seeing as you can see it no matter where you stand in our apartment. So instead, I avoided decorating it. However, Steve was nice enough to put the lights on so I could spend as minimal amount of time on it as possible. However, this process lasted for many days because every time it seemed like there were enough lights, he ended up right back at Walmart in need of additional strands. I think we ended up with like 4 total.

Finally, it was time to start decorating. Steve wanted to do the honors of placing the first ornament, so we had a small ceremony:

like raising the banner, only smaller. and with less toothless canadians

oh christmas b's, oh christmas b's

After that, we spent the next 4 hours trimming the rest of the tree. Fortunately, between the two of us, we have a plethora of ornaments. Steve's mom gave him at least one Christmas ornament every year of his life, and I have a shopping problem/snowflake obsession that has resulted in my purchasing many ornaments as well as receiving every possible snowflake ornament that exists. Also, I inherited my grandmother's precious Barbie collection, so we have a very random mix of things happening on The Tree. However, this was one time that my love of oversized decor came in handy, as I have many things like this:

not going to lie, i was a little worried the tree would think this was a triscuit

Like I said, hours later we finally had a (semi) covered tree.

i know, i'm worried about the open flames too

Now I realize that upon looking at this photo, this seems like a perfectly normal, nice, unsuspecting Christmas tree. Before you start to think that I am making a big deal about nothing, here's another pic that helps to put everything in perspective:

the leaning tower of tree-sa

If we break this down into a numbers thing, you can clearly see that The Tree takes up ONE THIRD of the entire apartment. I had to stand on a chair in our makeshift "dining area" just to even capture this photo.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is not just that The Tree is genetically enhanced and taking over our home. Okay, that's exactly what it is. You see, last year we had a very small, very chic purple couch from my single girl days (well not really "single," just not living with a boy) and post-wedding, we upgraded to a larger, more comfortable but less fashionable sectional. Unfortunately, this is now how much room you have to get into our supposed dining area. If you can't tell from this photo, it's approximately 6 inches.

let the corner wearing on the couch begin. who needs children to ruin furniture?

Luckily, I eat all my meals at the coffee table anyway due to its proximity to my only friend in the apartment now, my television.

This is how much space there is when you enter the apartment to get to the living room. Not as bad as the latter, but not really anything to write home about either.

even the nativity scene looks miniature in comparison

This tree made me realize many things.

1. I hate trees.

2. We need a bigger tree topper.

sometimes, size does matter

I used to love my glittery snowflake topper that I scored at Walmart five years ago for $4. Sure, it's not an heirloom or anything but it's better than a giant lit up star or a scary angel (no offense to any of your tree toppers, religious or otherwise. I just think a lot of those angels resemble creepy porcelain dolls whose eyes are following you around the room). This thing is just so dinky now in comparison to Andre the Giant and I every time I look at it, I feel like I am being mocked by it's small-ness.

Like I said, we have quite the mixed bag when it comes to ornaments. But unless your super rich or are dead inside, your Christmas tree is supposed to be a mix of things you collect over the years that mean something to you. And this is coming from me, who is so obsessed with things matching that I only let white hangers live in my closet, where they are concealed by a door... that is shut.

Last year, I gave Steve this gem in his stocking. Luckily, John is never lonely as he has many lovely ladies to hang out with around with.

the duke & the barbie. a forbidden love story

As for the rest of the apartment, I waited until Steve went to work before I really dug into my bag of Christmas tricks. As far as I'm concerned, this tree is his fault, so I get to decorate with as many silvery, pointed objects as I want.

oh deer

I am also taking advantage of the season and pretending that the red chairs/green wall combo in my dining area was on purpose, and not that I have been forbidden to buy my own chairs so we borrowed chairs from Uncle Peter that happen to be red and everything else in our place is green and purple. So basically it's Christmas, all year long. But we're going to say it's intentional.

oh christmas chairs, oh christmas chairs?

this reindeer has been hanging for a month. steve noticed it today.

notice on the left, the tree trying to eek into the picture. sneaky tree

So there you have it. We've survived a month so far, and thankfully, The Tree is coming down before we leave for our 1st anniversary trip next week. I am sure the takedown alone will warrant it's own post, so stay tuned. Eventually, I will triumph over this thing and get my life back. And then we can talk more about 2012 and resolutions and things of that nature. First on my list? Not to lose my longstanding battle with the flora of New England.