Fa la la

Get out the Pepto!! Santa has officially thrown up in our neighborhood. There are lights everywhere. So of course, not to be out done, Ryan and I headed to Wally-world (Walmart) to get our Christmas arsenal of lights, stockings, a tree, and other decorative staples. Being our first Christmas in the new house we only had two small 3 foot trees, a couple strands of lights, a few ornaments, my stocking, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I knew I was in for it when Ryan walked into the Christmas decoration "wing" of Wally-world and just stared all wide-eyed like it was...Christmas. So we began navigating our way through the aisles, not really knowing what to get first. We decided to start with the pinnacle of all Christmas decorations: the tree. At first we wanted a real tree. Neither one of us has had a real tree for Christmas since we were little children, but because we would be gone so much it would probably die within the first week. Plus Rocky would probably lift his leg to it a few times and then we would have soggy presents. Nobody wants soggy presents.

It's amazing at how many different types of artificial trees there are! There's 3 foot, 4 foot, 6 foot, 6.5 foot, 7 foot, and 10 foot. There's the kind that look like they are made out of green pipe cleaners and the kind that almost look real. There's green trees and white trees...WHITE TREES!!! There's unlit and prelit. Prelit with white lights and prelit with color lights. Blinking and non-blinking. There's even fiber optically lit trees!! We immediately disqualified the white trees for obvious reasons. Who wants a white tree? No offense to those who have them, but really? Fiber optics and Christmas trees I dont think mix well and plus then you can totally tell it is fake. We settled on a 6.5 foot tree that looked the least like pipe cleaners. We were going to buy lights to put around it but laziness took over and we got a prelit one. I then went and picked out a tree skirt to put around the bottom.

After the tree we went looking for a stocking for Ryan. The selection was small. There were plain ones and tacky ones and ridiculously decorated ones. Ryan settled for one that was green with red letters stating, "Touch Down!" complete with a fake football on top of it. It was perfect. He's so cute, isn't he? We even got Rocky a stocking that had a dog on it that barks Christmas carols when you squeeze his ear. Somehow, Rocky's stocking ended up being bigger than both of ours. I guess I better get Dammit a stocking too (that's my cat). After the stockings Ryan grabbed about three boxes of lights to put up around the outside of the house. I figured that's pretty harmless and would look pretty.
"What about icecicle lights?" I ask.
"No." Ryan said.
"Why not?" I ask.
"Honey, because I'm in charge. This is a man's job."
Ooooohhhhhh-kaaaaay. I didn't argue cuz if he wants to stand out in the cold and string lights up, that's fine with me. I'll stay inside. Passing through some of the lights, Ryan saw the inflatable characters that you put up in your yard. I could see the wheels working as he headed towards an 8 foot Santa complete with reindeer band that apparently plays music somehow.
"No way." I said shaking my head.
"Why?" he asked.
"It's 50 bucks. That's more than the tree!"I said.
"Well...well...what about the smaller ones?"
He points to the 4ft inflatable Frosty the Snowman and another Santa. They were considerably cheaper and probably a lot quieter. I could see inflatable characters in our lawn ment a lot to him so I nodded my approval. He grabbed one of each and a $4 sign that lights up stating "Merry Christmas."

Of course you can't decorate without some Christmas tunes. Ryan was adamant about getting a Frank Sinatra Christmas CD and I wanted Nat King Cole. Atleast we both agree on the classic Christmas songs. So we each got a $5 Christmas CD. That was it. It was time to go home and deck the halls and all that stuff.
With Frank and Nat wailing away on the stereo, we assembled our prelit tree and decked it out with ornaments, garland (which Ryan did cuz I apparently do it wrong, but that's okay cuz I tell him he does laundry wrong), and tree skirt. To top it all off I pulled out my tacky twinkling star to put on top of the tree. Ryan wanted to get an angel or something but I put my foot down. My family has always had a terrific tacky twinkling star on top of our trees and I would have nothing else on mine. He conceded quickly. I guess he could tell I was serious.
Ryan set up the inflatable characters and the sign outside and I watched from the window (it was about 10:30 at night...it's freakin' cold out at that time). Rocky of course wanted to pull off the ornaments cuz they are ball shaped so I was having to shoo him away from the tree every 5 minutes. But there was no leg lifting so our loot should be safe for now. The stockings were hung over our fireplace with Rocky's in the middle. Ryan hung up all the lights the next night and we surveyed our Christmas infected house. It's perfect.