Christmas 2013 | Decorate a Real Tree

Growing up I always had a fake Christmas tree. Hubby, on the other hand, always had a real tree. Because this is our first Christmas as a married couple we wanted to start a new tradition of having a real tree each year. Because we are new to the area I had a hard time finding a tree farm for us to get a tree from so instead we just bought our tree from Walmart. They had a great selection of trees and I’m quite impressed with how beautiful ours has turned out.

If you’re planning on getting a real tree for the first time make sure you have a proper stand for it. You’ll want one that holds water so the tree wont dry up and become a fire hazard. You will also need to buy or borrow a saw or heavy duty limb cutters to cut off the end of the tree so it’s able to start soaking up water. Your tree will need to be watered every day to keep it from drying up. Ours ‘drinks’ about 8 oz. of water each day so I just add another glass of water to the tree stand each morning and so far its doing great!

As you can see, the tree fit pretty good in the back seat!

As I mentioned above, we got our tree from Walmart this year. We have a small 2 door car and weren’t really sure how we were going to get our tree home, but it ended up fitting nicely in the back seat with only a little bit of the top hanging out the passenger window. I will say that I made quite a mess on everything though!

Bringing the tree in the house.

Because the tree was all tied up I thought it wasn’t going to be very big, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it poofed up nicely once the bands were cut. Thank goodness! A small tree would’ve been awful. Autry told me the tree we picked out would be plenty big. He was right.

Notice Demi in the background sniffing the bits that had fallen off the tree.

It took both of us to get the tree in the stand. I held the top while Autry worked on the bottom to make sure it would stay in the stand. Demi was quite interested in the new object in the house.

This was taken right after we untied the tree.
I was a little worried it was going to stay looking like this.
But obviously it didn't, and it looks beautiful now!

The branches took a bit to fall back to where they were supposed to be. I guess it’s a good thing we decorated the tree the day after we bought it. That gave it plenty of time to fluff up. The cats ‘helped’ with the bottom branches. Both of them wouldn’t leave the branches alone so they really fell into their proper place. The cats still mess with the branches, though I try to discourage them from doing so.

I am quite happy with my yard sale ornaments!
Who says new is better anyway?

Pulling out the ornaments was fun. Earlier this fall I found a bunch of ornaments at a yard sale so of course I picked them up since I knew we were going to have a bigger tree than I had previously. We wouldn’t of had enough ornaments if I hadn’t picked up the boxes of glass balls. The red ones are my favorite! Autry pulled out all my Precious Moments ornaments. I haven’t used them in years, but I’m so glad he got them out because I forgot how pretty they are!

Same photo as the first in case you were wondering.

I think our tree turned out quite pretty. We had fun decorating it and I love that it’s simple. No beads, no ribbon. Just some lights and ornaments…and of course a few boxes of candy canes too! Not saying I don’t like trees with beads and ribbon, I’m just not good at putting those things on the tree and Autry doesn't care for them so we just didn't do them.

All the beautifully wrapped presents!
P.S. Check out my How To Gift Wrap A Box tutorial!

The day before we both wrapped the presents we had gotten for each other. Autry took over the living room and I took over the bedroom. I bought the wrapping paper last year in the after Christmas clearance sale and picked out rolls that had the same colors. I thought it the wrapped presents turned out beautifully! And do you remember the thrifted post I did back in September 2012 where I found the lace tree skirt? It adds a nice touch to our tree (though the cats love playing with the ties in the back and that’s frustrating since it never looks like it’s supposed to).

Well that’s all I have on our tree decorating for this year! Having a real tree is a new experience for me. I'd have to say that if your OCD about having clean floors then the falling needles might drive you a bit insane, but they don’t bother me too much. I just vacuum them up every few days and that works just fine for me! :)