Oh Christmas Tree

The secret of a successful marriage is communication and compromise. Unfortunately one area where Hannah and I have never mastered this is Christmas trees. Every year she points out the romance and seasonal excitement of the smell of real pine as you enter the room. I point out that I'm the one that has to hoover up the needles, and can't you get the same effect with a fake tree and some car air fresheners.

So I took advantage of living in a rented flat on the third floor to finally convince her that fake was the way to go this year. More than that, the Salvation Army store was having a 50% off sale and I picked up a 7 1/2 ft tree for $7.50 (a dollar a foot! Pretty good value). This morning I decided to put it together.

"The key to a Beautiful Tree is SHAPE" the instructions confidently state. Another key might be having all the pieces in the box. On inspection my 7 1/2 ft tree turns out to be missing 3 feet. Undeterred I ploughed on only to discover that it was the top 3 feet, giving the whole thing a slightly "sawn off" look.

What kind of person donates half a fake Christmas tree to a charity shop? Why do I consistently fall for "bargains"? And it still drops needles!! Only now they're fake ones.



The promise.



The reality. (The lights were an extra $2).