We decorated the “main” tree with a lot of silver & red decorations with white lights and a few of our sentimental ornaments mixed in. It looked lovely! I enjoyed sitting in the glow of the Christmas lights many evenings!

Just after Thanksgiving, a local store was having a sale on artificial, 4-foot, pre-lit Christmas trees. They were a good price so I went and bought one. That tree went in the upstairs hallway, and the kids could pick any of their traditional ornaments to put on it. They were excited!

The (new) plan (in my opinion) was that we could have 2 trees, simultaneously, for Christmas. It was, I’ll admit, a lot of fun to have a second tree this year, and it’s just the right size for a cozy corner in the hall. Perfect!

I was really excited about this plan - and that the compromises worked well.

Christmas came & went and much fun was had by all!

And before we knew it, the time had come to undecorate the tree. I didn’t even try to suggest we undecorate the upstairs tree first. I knew it would just be ridiculous to suggest that. So we proceeded with undecorating the downstairs tree.

A few days went by, and the upstairs tree remained. Early January passed - and yet, the tree lingered. Hmmm. I began thinking about how to approach the subject.

See, in my mind, we had two trees, so after Christmas, we could undecorate both. That (to me) solved the issue of having to keep a tree up through January. And, theoretically, Picasso had agreed to this. At least, I thought he had.

Again - what was I thinking? When I suggested we undecorate the tree, Picasso was NOT a happy camper. “You said we could keep it up till the end of January!” No arguing with that. Yes, that’s exactly what I said, and I planned to keep my word and encourage the compromise. “Ok, honey - I was just asking if you were ready to take it down.

And then, it happened.

Picasso: “Mom, this tree is not in the way downstairs because it’s upstairs in the hall. Can we leave it up all year?”

Me: “All…..YEAR?”

Picasso: “Yes, Mommy, all year.”

Me: “Um…. Um…. Um…. You’re going to have to ask Daddy.”
{I really had no answer. I didn’t even know what to suggest. Hence, chickening out of answering passing the decision to my husband.}

Picasso: “Ok! Thanks, Mom!”

A few hours later and he was home from work.

Kids: “Daddy, DADDY!!!!!…….”

They proceeded to ask him if they could keep the tree up all year.

He looked at me.

Tim, v e r y slowly, while processing the question: “You want to keep the tree up all YEAR?”

This time, ALL the kids joined in:
“Yes! We want to keep it up all year!”
“We really like it!”
“It’s SOO pretty!”

Tim: “Um, I guess that’s ok - IF you will keep the tree vacuumed, and wipe off the ornaments from time to time.”

Kids: “YAY!! Ok, we’ll do that!”

And that’s the story of how we *still* have a Christmas tree up in our house…in April.