Sunday, December 12, 2004

No "Skipping Christmas" here.


Melissa and our tree
Originally uploaded by Allan & Cheryl.

The new movie "Christmas with the Kranks" is based on a John Grisholm novel "Skipping Christmas". Having read the book, I'm going to wait for the movie to come out on video.

I was inspired by the book to try and "simplify" our Christmas - but the kids, Melissa in particular - have been resisting me at every turn.

After putting out our ratty artificial tree out on the curb for "reuse weekend" and then having our landlord spray pesticides onto our small live Blue Spruce from last Christmas - I vowed to save $ this year by omitting the Christmas tree.

However that vow was short-lived. The vow of "no tree this year" has been rescinded in the face of a pleading 5 year old. To Melissa's great joy - we now have another live Christmas tree: this year a Serbian Spruce. After the festivities, it will be planted here in our landlord's yard as it is already getting too big for the pot.

I just couldn't bring myself to get a cut Christmas tree that will last only a few weeks; during which it dries out in a long, slow death while dropping needles all over the rug and then have to be disposed of after Christmas.

2 comments:

Gail at Large said...

I still think they should've bought you a replacement tree...

Well, the stuff I'm bringing back wouldn't fit under this tree, so it's just as well that I'm not wrapping them -- hopefully all the coats will fit (fingers crossed) and they can start using them right away. If any are the wrong size, David will bring the proper sizes on Christmas Eve and we have 90 days to return the wrong sizes back to the store in Pennsylvania.

Cheryl said...

Actually - Hydro ran over budget last time (we all pay into hydro on a formula based on both floor space an how many people we have) - but we negotiated the dead tree as counting for our share of what it was over.