O Christmas Tree

So if you are among the few Chicagolanders (is that really how you say it?) who keep up with this blog, you already know that I put up my very first real Christmas Tree all by myself this year.

You also know that I've sworn against ever doing it again.

Yes, it's beautiful.
Yes, it smells wonderful.
Yes, it's festive.
Yes, it trashed my house and yes, I had to make an extra trip to the hardware store just to buy a hacksaw that I'll never use again to get it to fit into the tree stand that took me an hour to get set up just so and yes, by the time this was all done, I wanted no part of decorating the bloody thing.

But I did. And OK, I love it.
I was missing one thing though- a topper. An angel or a star or something to complete the look... and then I went on a business trip.

Now, stay with me here. I went on a business trip to Michigan where I participated in what is going down in the books as like, the best meeting ever, and everyone involved would probably be jumping up and down and hugging if this was a John Hughes film. (Wouldn't that be great?)

The next day, still giddy with accomplishment, on our way back to Detroit to catch our plane, Jim and I drove through a small town called Frankenmuth. Michigan's "little Bavaria" just so happens also to be the home of Bronner's Christmas Wonderland the LARGEST Christmas store in the world. And lemme tell ya, it's huge.

This place is like Costco for the Christmas OCD. There was a whole floor set up the size of, I don't know, Target, with just ornaments. It was out of control. It was here, I decided, that I was meant to buy a tree topper. And I did. It's one of those glass bulb things with the point at the top? You know what I mean? Anyway, it's awesome.

AND yesterday, Jim, Chris, Aimee and I made the trek back to Daley Plaza during our lunch hour to check out the market one more time before we all go on vacation. While there I was able to squash Chris's grinchy Christmas Tree fact (said tree is not really one authentic tree- see December 1 post) with the fact that the Daley Plaza tree is actually made of many whole authentic trees. They just happened to be stuck in a gigantic metal frame like the faux trees of my future. So while my hope of one gigantic tree was still not realized, I feel a little redeemed by the fact that we were gathered around something partially authentic. It was something anyway.

I wonder how they water it.