Oh Christmas Tree

Alternately titled: Oh, Home Depot

We got our tree! It's up, and it looks lovely, and its drinking like crazy which I assume means its closer to alive than dead, so yay!

But getting the tree...

I would have liked to get the tree over Thanksgiving weekend (actually, I would have preferred for Jay to spend Thanksgiving with his family instead of Brian's, chop down my tree in Iowa, bring it back here and set it up in my living room, but that wasn't meant to be this year). Oh, and Mark was gone. So there's that. Anyhow, we planned to get it this weekend--a relatively tight time frame, because I'm hosting a cookie exchange on Monday night and may have to work all day Sunday. We were meeting my dad for dinner Friday night, which left Saturday morning.

And then the forecast kept getting mentioned in the news...snow! snow! snow! (yay!) Except that I didn't want to go a) drive in the snow b) get a tree in the snow c) bring the tree home on top of the car in continuing snow d) bring the snow inside with the tree. So instead we did it Friday night.

We had dinner with my dad, went for dessert with my dad (my father's family expresses affection via cash, food and post-its), walked back home and then right back to Southport because I wanted to go to the Southport Holiday Stroll just because. Really just because. I didn't want to buy anything, I was too stuffed for the free food and I don't drink anyhow--it was just fun last year so I wanted to.

Then we headed for Home Depot on Elston around 8:30 pm. We had a lovely experience buying our tree at this Home Depot last year, plus its cheap, so why wouldn't we. Unfortunately, apparently lots of people heard the weather forecast and decided they needed their tree before Saturday, so it was pretty busy. Last year, you could just grab someone to slice open a couple trees for you, bring one up to get its end chopped and then check out in the little kiosk in the garden center. We even picked up one of those giant tree bags. And then you carry it out and the nice people help tie it to your car. Sweet!

This year...not so much.

First we had some trouble finding someone to open a tree for us--we managed to stop one woman, but then she vanished. Once we finally chose our tree, Mark got in line to get in cut, and I went looking for a tree bag (the box by the kiosk was empty--sadness). I wandered all the way inside and along the checkouts, and finally found another employee, but she couldn't find any tree bags either. I came back outside in time to hear the woman helping at the register inform everyone they were closing the big door to the outside "Because its too cold."

Annoying.

"So you'll have to pay for your trees inside. We are closing this door down."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?

For real?!?! Not to be obvious, but...it's a TREE. Its not like you want me to bring my potted plant inside. Or my lightbulb. It's an 8 foot Christmas tree. And you have so much holiday stuff in the front aisle (the one that runs along the registers) you can't maneuver a flat bed cart through. But what can you do.

So Mark got the fat end and I got the skinny end, and we carried our tree inside to buy it. There's a bunch of stuff before the registers along the front of the store, but as we were walking, every register we passed was closed. Every. Single. One. In fact, the only thing open was Self Check Out. So we self checked our tree. And true to #@$%!@ form, the self-check out flipped out about its bagging area. You know, when it keeps telling you that an item has been removed or an unexpected item was detected and freezes up entirely. Even if you put whatever it is back.

Anyhow, we bought the tree, carried it out, and I pulled my car around to the garden center. Where, as it turned out, Home Depot's only employee without an attitude was stationed: Freddy. Freddy tied the tree to the top of our car, and was very nice and friendly about it (he also had an admirable tolerance for the cold) (and my tree didn't fall off my car).

So, the tree came home, we set it up, and as of tonight it is nicely lit and ornamented and quite thirsty.

And you better believe I got the receipt from Mark so I could "Share your opinion with us!" Here's hoping I win the $5000 gift card (or at least an apology for being forced to self-check my tree).