'Tis the season

The tree is up, the stockings are hung and a few brightly colored packages are sitting beneath our tree. Our Charley Brown tree.

We bought this tree last year and thought we were getting a great deal on this 6 ft. tree all adorned with lights. Pretty lights. Lots of lights. However, the tree is NOT 6 ft. tall. It's four feet max. The only thing that makes our tree 6 feet tall is the 2 foot branch sticking up from the top for an angel to sit on.

And there is an angel on top.

However, given the year we've had and the job schedule I'm currently keeping, our 4 foot tree with the 2 foot branch up top is about all we've got to celebrate with this season. Rick brought the tree out of the garage and I, in a moment with nothing to do, assembled and put the little tree up in front of our living room window. It was so small (I don't remember it being that small from last year) that I also hoisted it up onto the coffee table... just so folks driving by could actually see it in our window. I kid you not, it's that short.

So, again... we have our tree and I've hung the stockings. But I have a 16 year old daughter who just couldn't tear herself away from her palm pilot or blackberry or whatever the hip name is for that thing this year... to hang a single ornament on our little tree. And the lawn ornaments that we bought for 1/2 price last year are still in their boxes, sitting by the front door.

There's nary an ornament on our tree (save for the two ornaments my boss gave me yesterday) and there's not a light on the front of our house nor on our lawn.

Charley Brown's got nothin' on me.

I am praying that I don't find coal in my stocking on Christmas morning. It wouldn't surprise me though. And if there is? I'll just think of it as a diamond in the rough.