Oh Christmas Tree!

There are two special things that I enjoy doing to relax. One is sitting in our back room, next to our roaring gas stove, watching, through our new large windows, the snow fall and accumulate on our huge pine trees. It is so peaceful and beautiful. The second is sitting in my lounger, listening to beautiful Christmas music, and looking at our Christmas tree. I love the beautiful colors of the tree, especially when everything else in the room is dark. It's a great atmosphere in which to relax and meditate and pray. Unfortunately, before one can enjoy this experience, one must deal with putting up and decorating the tree. A few years ago we got rid of our huge artificial tree that took hours to assemble and purchased a slightly smaller one from Stauffers that was supposed to be much easier to set up. But, we found out, too late, that the branches sag. It looked much nicer in the store. So the first thing we must now do is tie up many of the branches to fill in the open spots. Not much fun. A few days ago I survived that ordeal. Then we began to put on the strings of lights. Dianne had three of the five strings on when we found that many of the lights had burnt out. So we began to work on the fourth string and suddenly all the lights on that string went out. After much frustration, I found that the fuse on that line had blown and, of course, we had no such fuses in our house. So the next morning we were off to the hardware store and when I found fuses, I decided to buy some extra in case more would ever go out. Then we went to another store to buy more replacement bulbs. When we finally got home I replaced the fuse and we began to install bulbs again, only to find out that Lowes had mixed in some of the wrong type bulbs in the rack with the ones we needed. I didn't know that until we opened the one box. Then it was too late. Bummer. I was just able to return one of the boxes. But we had enough to hook up the fourth string. Then suddenly all the lights on the four strings went out. Once again the fuse had blown and now I no longer wanted to take a chance with that string. So I went to work on the fifth string only to find out that it also needed a fuse, and guess what. It took a different size. So back to the store once again. However, this time we just decided to avoid the hassle and purchase two new strings. Have you shopped recently for Christmas tree lights, especially looking for those that match what you already have? Lights now come in all sizes, all colors, and all types, including energy efficient. But we did find two strings of the same size and type that we had. That just about solved our problem. However, we also found that we had some blinking lights mixed in and we really don't want blinking lights - sorry if you like them - we don't. So once again we replaced bulbs. Finally the lights were on! And now we have enough extra bulbs, including blinkers and wrong styles, and fuses to last us a lifetime - or at least until next year - or, hopefully, at least until January. The tree is up and it is beautiful and I am looking forward to a number of nights of relaxation in front of the tree listening to Christmas music. Unfortunately it won't be very long until we need to reverse the process and take all of it down again. That is almost as much work as putting it up. Now, in all fairness, Dianne does much of the work. But I do share in both the work and the frustrations. However, I do have a great creative solution for this problem, but Dianne won't listen to it. Once it is up, why not just keep the tree up all year? Look at all the work and frustration this would eliminate and I could enjoy the tree whenever I wanted to. That solution has my vote! Let me know if you support my solution. I need all the support that I can get on this one.