It only took two ...

… two trips to Lowe's
… two doors
… two trips to Walgreens
… two times putting the lights on
… two outlets
… two days
… two posts

And then the tree was finally up!  And it was worth it.  But I am hoping next year doesn't require the same dedication of time!

We started off last Sunday by stopping to get the tree at Lowe's.  Looked through a few and then found our beauty.  And squeezed it into the car.  And got it home.  And tried to put it in the stand, but the trunk was too thick.  So, back to Lowe's I went for a new tree stand.  But they were all sold out of the ones for the 6-7 ft trees unless you wanted the spinning $50 one.  Um, no thanks.  So I started to head back to the car.  And then I realized there were those lighted trees on display at the front of the Garden Center.  Hmmmmmm.  I asked the very nice man and he agreed that I should purchase one of the stands holding up one of those trees.  And he very nicely got it for me.  And I had many people approach me in line to ask where I found it or if I was returning it and they could buy it.  I could have sold it to one of them for enough to buy the spinning one, now that I think about it!  But I don't need my tree to spin.  Nor do I want it to.  I just want it to glow (don't worry, you'll hear more about that a few sentences from now).  So, now we had a tree and a stand.  Roy got it in the stand outside so we could unwrap it and shake off any extra needles outside, and since our front door is actually two doors that open up, it was a breeze to bring the tree in all opened up without scraping it along every door frame and wall to make 37% of the needles fall off.  Next step was the lights.  And I planned to get that done Sunday night while the kids were in bed so it would be ready for decorating on Monday after school.  Well, I saw a pin on Pinterest about making the tree 'glow' and I figured I needed a glowing tree this year.  Not just lit.  But glowing.  So every branch was to be wrapped in lights.  And then I ran out half way up the tree.  I used up all 600 of my lights.  The same number I used last year for a similar sized tree.  And 300 MORE than I used to use on the 5 footers we had in the Bronx.  So, it was off to Walgreens on Monday morning with Riley for three more strings of lights.  900 lights should do it.  Or not.  So, back to Walgreens for 3 more sets.  And finally I had my tree glowing with all 1200 lights.  Briefly.  Because I blew a fuse.  Oops.  You can't connect that many strings of lights together.  I promise, I did take physics in university (I even met Roy in physics lab when we were doing all sorts of circuits, but apparently I was paying more attention to him than the class content!).  And I can read the warnings and instructions.  I just never thought to do so.  Again - oops.  So they ALL had to come down so we (and by 'we' I mean 'Roy') could replace the burnt out fuse(s) and figure out an alternate solution for making my tree glow (because reducing the glow factor was no longer an option!).  But the kids were having fun decorating, so I let them finish.  And then I took all the decorations off.  And all the lights.  And Roy helped me replace the fuse on the first string, which was luckily the only one I blew.  And then I split the lights into groups that would no longer overload the circuit and plugged them into separate outlets and used an extension cord and worked my magic.  And then the kids and I decorated the tree again.  And today, 6 days after the initial lighting attempt, Roy finally was brave enough to pull out the Griswold jokes :)

Day 1

Day 2

And this will have to be followed up with a second post another day because I just realized I don't even have a picture yet of my glowing tree at night time!