Oh Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree!

When I was younger, we often went as a family to get our Christmas tree (fresh cut from a lot) on my birthday in early December. It wasn't until after we got our Christmas tree this year, that I remembered why we haven't been following the same tradition in our family. We got our tree earlier this week and now I remember that the number of days that we have a Christmas tree with ornaments on it equals the number of times (times 500) that I get to gently remind my children that if they play with the glass ornaments they get put away. So far, it's been about six days and the tree is looking very bare. It probably doesn't help that we got a pretty small tree, so the kids can both reach more than half way up. I'm thinking by Wednesday, the ornaments will be gone, and I will just have to put some ribbon on (no way am I stringing cranberries and popcorn with these kids around).
Here's our tree before ornaments. It was pretty dry when we got it and was dropping needles all over the place when I put the lights on. I decided I better take a picture of it before it went too far in the Charlie Brown way. It's a balsam. We never had those in California, so I'm thinking it's a regional thing. We were trying to decide between frasier and balsam and it looked like the balsams were taller and skinnier, which I thought was cute, but ours is pretty much too short to tell anyway. It looks like a frasier. Oh and just to weigh in on the fake v. real argument: I'm totally on the real side. It isn't Christmas when you have to assemble a tree. (But maybe I'll change my mind when we have a little more room for storage.) Anyway...