A Christmas Confession

So today officially begins the Christmas season around the home place. Both pilgrims are safely back to school and work, and Super Dad headed out this morning for a busy week of money making.

That leaves Herself the Elf to begin preparations for the most festive time of the year.
 Ho. Ho. Ho.

I thought I'd start this holiday season with a little yuletide confession for you. 

Folks,
I hate to decorate the Christmas tree. 

It's true. Not only do I hate it; I've generally flunked it for the past 28 years. I'm not exactly sure how that happened, either. By rights, I should have inherited a Christmas tree gene.  The Duchess puts up fifteen full sized designer trees. The Farm Sister is working on her own slippery slope with six of them.

Me? I struggle to put up one.  

Part of the blame for that lies with the man of the house, who insists on buying a live tree. 

Everyone knows that elves with Decorating Deficiency Disorder ought to stick to artificial Christmas trees. They're just plain easier to work with. With a faux tree, you can bend those boughs any way you have a mind to. They never sag when you stick a heavy ornament on them and create a gaping hole where a branch is supposed to be, either.

For years, I tried to convince him to go with a nice, artificial one, pre-lit if possible.  It would be so much easier, I said.  Just whip out  the box from the attic and set her up.  No trips to the tree lot. No cuttings all over the back deck. No lights to stretch out all over the floor. No belly crawls every few days to check the water level.

But he said...

No evergreen aroma to waft through the home place. 

OK... technically, he said, "They don't smell good", but since I was tossing him under the bus, I thought I ought to at least make him sound a little more eloquent. The man just has a thing for tradition, and in his mind Christmas isn't Christmas unless it smells like Pine Sol.

So every year on the day after Thanksgiving, we head to the tree lot and buy our annual forty dollar Pine Sol. I used to try to make a family outing out of it, but as the years passed, dad and daughters were more than happy to leave Ebenezer Scrooge behind.

This year, dad went all by himself.  

I shall never allow him to do that again.  

I took one walk around that beast and decided that Christie Kringle was way above my pay grade. Not only is she built like the governor of New Jersey, but she appears to be sprouting whiskers. I honestly didn't know where to begin.

But fortunately...

Although I didn't inherit the Christmas tree gene, I am a carrier.  One of the two daughters has been putting up Duchess trees for years and was glad to dig through my meager supply of tree ornaments to give me this:

.I like it. 

I still need to trim some whiskers and fill in some gaps, but she left me with a great start and good suggestions before flying back to Capitol Hill.

I'm off now to by some gap stuffing. I might just update this if I'm pleased with my additions.

So far, that's the only decorating I've done around here. As you can see, Christie Kringle is sitting next to a fall mantel. Such is life on Debbie Drive.

So what about you?

 Do you like to decorate the Christmas tree? 

Do you use a real one or a faux one? 

Inquiring minds want to know...