Christmas Trees

Yes, we had 3 Christmas trees on top of the SUV coming home from my grandma's house.  An 11', 8' and 4.5' tree.  We looked ridiculous.  We know.

The adventure came we it was time to put them up.  The small one was easy.  We did that Saturday night after we got home (after an eventful trip to Menards...more to come on that subject soon).  Sunday my dad brought in the 8' tree and put it up in the family room.  Apparently the "Let me know when you're bringing it in and I'll help" was ignored.  He did it all himself.  Punk.  I had to run to the store for milk in the middle of making lunch and left saying, "DON'T take the big tree in by yourself.  I'll be home in 10 minutes and will help you carry it in."  I got home, the tree was already in the living room.  Punk.  But the adventures were about to begin.  We got the tree up. Big. Heavy.  But it was up.  I went into the kitchen to finish up lunch and heard a big thud, followed by, "The tree just fell on me!"  Well, 2 inches to the left and it would have wiped up my mom's whole Precious Moments collection.  Probably better my dad broke the fall.  So we get it up again (which took more work this time) and tried spinning it around to get the best angle.  It fell again, but Dad caught it this time.  In the midst of this, I can't even begin to tell you how many times I had to crawl under the tree and lift the lever on the tree stand, have my dad try to straighten it, lock it back into place, get out, see if it's straight, crawl back under the tree and repeat.  So it looks good.  Dad gets the big ladder to tie to tree to the wall so it can't fall.  He starts tying.  I'm watching.  Suddenly, it's like slow motion seeing the tree start to go again.  All I could do was stand there and yell, "It's going to fall!  It's going to fall!  It's falling!"  Not much help, I know.  It took out my mom's lamp, but we got it back together.  But the 11 foot tree is once again lying completely on the floor.

Finally, we get it up, determine isn't not going to be moved any more and just needs to get tied down.  So I stick my arms in there to hold the tree up/into place so that it can't fall over while my dad is tying it.  (Yes, it's still in the tree stand, but apparently it's just too heavy to stand up straight.)  I couldn't help buy tell my dad that if anything comes running out of the tree at me, I'm out of there.  Thankfully, nothing did.  If there was anything living in that tree, it would have had to have come out during one of the three previous falls.

Once the trees are decorated, I will take pictures and post them on here.

Oh, and my mother was not home for any of this.  My grandma fell getting into the car on Thanksgiving night, so we left my mom with her for a couple extra days.  She's doing okay.  It's hard for her to walk, but they went to the ER last night and they said she'll be fine, but it'll take a good 6 weeks to heal.  Bummer.