Sleeping On It

It was a good day for us today. Between services we had our children's Christmas program, including some musical offerings and poetry readings from the middle school and high school youth. We are blessed with some extremely talented youth - I just wish I had a video camera to record and post some of their songs. Alas... I attended a good Nominating Committee meeting - one of those things they never teach you about in seminary... We had planned for a couple of weeks to put our Christmas tree up tonight. So, after a serious vacuuming and mopping of the laminate floor that never stays clean for more than about 30 seconds, we brought in the box, which takes both of us to carry. We bought a nice pre-lit artificial tree in Phoenix, where real trees were not only incredibly expensive but also extreme fire dangers. Living in Montana, it's tempting to trade it for a real tree, but this year we decided to save the money nad use what we've got. We got the base out, no problem, and the bottom section, inserted in the base and nicely fluffed. The lights plugged in and turned on, all twinkly. The second section of the tree was a little trickier, but we got it. After that, not so much. There's just no way to get a nine foot tree to stand up in a room with eight foot ceilings, no matter how much you try to bend that top section. Of course in our haste to get the whole thing put together we missed at least one of the electrical connections, too, so even the sections we did get put together won't all light up. We decided to take it all apart and start over. Only the first two sections are now stuck together. Even lifting the two sections out of the base and playing tug of war with them wouldn't unstick them. The base and bottom two sections are now out in the garage, hoping the cold temperature out there will miraculously make it easier to get it fixed in the morning. And yes, assuming we can get the lights all figured out, we're still going with the nine footer, just not the top foot or so. We're going to need a much bigger star...