I've been noticing that everyone is getting these amazing pictures of ornaments on their trees. So I set out to get the perfect ornament picture of OUR tree. Though I wasn't anticipating how difficult this would prove to be.
Before I took any pictures though, I needed to put the final touches on the tree; bows. I have a bag of velvet'ish red bows that REALLY finish off the look/feel of the tree. It's my favorite part, almost. I grabbed the bag, my cup of coffee, turned on some music, and prepared to place them on the tree.
However, the tree wasn't ready for the bows (and certainly not picture worthy!). I tried to override all the decorating sense within me, and convinced myself that allowing DH, Miss T, and EJ to place ALL the ornaments this year was the way to go. I wouldn't intervene, they could place them where they wanted them. When ornament placement time came, we all gathered around the tree. I was in charge of unpacking all the ornaments to keep myself busy, and away from what they were doing. I unpacked all of them, but much to my surprise I turned around and they were all done! My ornaments were the only ones left to grace the tree! I guess I was hoping for somewhat more of a Brady Bunch experience, and what I got was Christmas puking on our tree. Everyone was done in about 5 minutes. With the amount of ornaments we have there's no WAY we should have been finished in 5 minutes!
Nothing was thought out, ornaments were literally laying on the branches. It was truly one of the ugliest trees I've seen. But the kids and DH were happy, so I tried to be too. I would occasionally swap two ornaments out and find a better placement for them so you could actually see the ornament. However that only got me so far.
So here I am with the bows in hand, eyeballing this horrible tree; wondering what the point is. Miss T's ornaments are mostly on 1 branch. EJ's ornaments are all near the bottom, and appear he tossed them into the tree wishing them best of luck. Punkin' had at this point removed 9/10ths of the ornaments around the bottom, and whoever placed them back just stuck them on whatever branch was most convienient. I was guilty of this too, but I saw no point in placing it in the 'right' spot when no one else found a 'right' spot.
*shrug*
I go to place the first bow, but there's an ornament laying on the branch. I pick that one up to relocate it, but it's missing it's hook. I have NO idea where the hook is for this ornament, but it's high enough it's probably still clinging to the branch for dear life. I glance around, picked off 3-4 ornaments, found them new homes which meant relocating 3-4 more. I mean I guess I could have easily just placed the bows on anyway, calling it a day. To me though, it's kind of like putting glitter on a pile of poo... it's still poo, just sparkly. It's sad I felt that way about our tree, but c'mon Christmas trees are supposed to be pretty, warm, and enjoyable to look at! None of our dangly ornaments were dangling, rather they were crunched on top of the branch beneath it, heavy ornaments were left to pull down measly branches. It was sad. Really.
It was set -
I'm redoing this nonsense. I began taking off all the ornaments and icicles, finding them a safe place to lay while I redo the entire tree.
We have a fake tree, it's about 8 ft high and FULL of bendy branches. That being said, all of the branches at child height, were now bent and disfigured from being mushed into for the children to find a new branch to hang 100 ornaments on. After removing all the ornaments I had to reshape the entire tree, fix the lights that had been yanked partially off the branches, and fix the tree skirt that had been completely mangled.
Redoing the tree wouldn't have crossed my mind if it seemed like they had enjoyed decorating the tree, not that it was a punishment of some sort. No one was happy about putting their ornaments on, and it was extremely rushed so they could get back to their previous activities. Understandable, but by all means don't make a big stink about putting them on the first place when you know mama would have done it. Or just wait until you don't want to rush. It's all I heard for a week, "when are we doing the ornaments!!!!" Can you blame me for expecting a little more?
However now I was determined more than ever that this would be a lovely tree by the time I was done.
Finding a place to put THAT many ornaments was tricky. I used the cat tree to place some non-breakables, and then used some well-placed hangers for the rest.
I stood back away from the tree, bare of ornaments, branches fluffed back out, lights just'a twinklin' away. Now the fun part.
Putting them all back.
I started with the personalized ornaments, Miss T's first. I went to the bottom right hand of the tree where I knew she'd recognize if I moved some key ornaments, and carefully placed them in a better hanging spot. I then moved on to DH's ornaments, with a few of mine and punkin's mixed in. I was careful to place ornaments that had been commented on by one of them back in the general area where it had been tossed originally.
Haha. Suffice it to say, after I got all the personalized ornaments on the tree, it was already looking MUCH better. The dangly ones were dangling, the heavy ones on stronger branches, everything had the perfect spot to show it off. I then meticulously placed all the plain ball ornaments, and then the icicles. Finally, time for the bows. I carefully went around the tree adding bows to the right spots. Making sure the tree didn't have any barren spots. Looks good!
The funniest part about the whole thing, is that the children didn't give the tree a second glance after putting their ornaments on. They didn't pay the tree any attention really. As soon as they were moved though? Miss T was showing it off to her friends, our friends were noticing it. Yet with all this "noticing" no one has 'noticed' that mommy redid the tree. Sneaky sneaky :)
Dear Christmas tree, let's keep this between us okay?
P.s. I was SO pleased that the tree looked amazing, I forgot to take a picture. However, I'll get on that ASAP.
Hehe sneaky sneaky indeed :P
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