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Everything You Didn’t Want To Know About Bossy’s Christmas Tree, 2008.

xmas-tree-fire-station

Today’s story begins innocently enough at the cluster of municipal buildings in the center of Bossy’s small town, where earlier in the month, Bossy and her husband and daughter paced the rows of available trees spouting more opinions about evergreens than mentally healthy.

selecting-tree

Once situated back in the Casa de Blog, Bossy’s husband carefully applied five sets of newly purchased Target lights to the tree. Bossy’s husband applied five sets of Target lights to the tree because every year Bossy’s husband applies five sets of Target lights to the tree. Bossy hates change and is comforted when she can predict the outcome based on past routine.

lights-on-tree

Remember way back sixteen words ago when Bossy said she hates change? Well. Bossy should have seen this tree light disaster coming because of a little thing she likes to call Oh My Gah They Changed The Packaging.

changed-packaging

“No problem,” repeated Bossy’s husband. “I have an unopened box of Christmas lights from last year we can use for the top of the tree.”

more-lights

“No one will ever be able to tell,” repeated Bossy’s husband, who is Jewish, as he applied the final string of lights and attempted to blend them around the center of the tree. It may shock you to learn Bossy Could Tell. And after she pointed it out to everyone within a seven-mile radius, They Could Tell Too.

quirky-tree-lights

But alas, Bossy lived with the tree in this exact state for one week, which was exactly how long it took Bossy’s son to complete this semester’s final exams and hop a train home so the family could trim the tree together.

pink-christmas-tree-lights

And trim the tree they did. Utilizing every ball and vintage ornament and paper chain and strand of tinsel until the differentiation of lights strands could be obscured.

trimming-the-tree2

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Now I understand while tree-trimming is a Christian tradition. If it were performed by Jewish families it would be the end of our race. We’d all kill each other.

    Oh my Gah, the drama of it all.

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  3. It is BEEEu- TI- FuLLLL!
    The bossys are some kinda tree trimmers.
    –snowed in*again*here in the “EVERGREEN” state..WTF?
    white christmas? In Washington state? WOWZA.
    coastalnest

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  4. Congratulations on successfully trimming the tree with lights! I carefully strung 3 strands of colored lights and 2 strands of white lights in our tree and was about to plug into the extension cord when I saw I had a ‘female’ end ready to plug into a female end of the extension cord!

    How is this possible?

    I UNDID all the lights, plugged one strand in and then worked from the bottom up. Apparently there is a trick to this and I never am in on the tricks to know….

    *Deep cleansing breath* and Merry Hannakuh Christmas etc to you and yours too!

    Reply

  5. LOLOL… Hmm Don’t think I could have a pin-urple tree, but I hear ya on the curse of the lights.. we had the same thing happen, ran out at top and had to zig-zag the new lights around to blend in. Eh.. it’s all good. I love a room lit with nothing but the tree and a few candles – so peaceful.

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  6. You’re a better woman than I am, Bossy. The different lights would make me CRAZY. I would have sent the husband to buy another strand.

    You’re tree is beautiful. I’m not a fan of pink, but here it is special.

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  7. I’m all boring with the clear lights. But lately, the big, old-fashioned, multi-colored lights are calling to me. I may have to do a “retro” tree next year. Makes me think of Christmas at Grandma’s…

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  8. I absolutely LOATHE putting lights on Christmas trees. My hands always end up looking bloody and scarred. That is probably why we have 6 white twinkle lights on the tree this year. My darling husband said we have the only tree that one needs a flashlight to appreciate.

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  13. Wow…. I’m now feeling quite grateful that I don’t have to do anything decoratively more complicated than sticking some candles in a menorah and making sure The Offspring doesn’t burn himself, or anything else, while lighting them.

    Happy holidays!

    Reply

  14. Bossy, I commend you on putting up with those different lights. To illustrate the difference between you and me, last year while decorating our tree we ran out of white lights. We did have an extra strand, but this had a white cord. (Unacceptable! Tree lights need green cords.) After I vetoed that, my bf pulled out another extra strand, but these were thick icicle lights. The distribution of bulbs is very different than the rest.

    Guess who drove to a 24 hr grocery at midnight to find the strand to finish the job? And I still say, it was totally worth it. 🙂

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  15. As long as they’re colored lights it’s all good. No offense white light tree people but what’s a Christmas tree without a rainbow display of colored lights??

    Merry Merry Christmas to Bossy, her crew and her tree!

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  19. *sigh* I just adore the bossys, always adding a little ray of sunshine to my day. Merriness and brightness to all of the bossys this holiday season!! 🙂

    Reply

  20. I’m so glad to hear that other people hate change as much as I do. Life is much nicer when you know how some part of it is going to happen. After all, familiarity breeds content! Or contempt. Whatever.

    And letting your son help pick the tree from school? SO SWEET! Will you be my mother?

    Reply

  23. Same thing happened to my tree! The lights at the top are closer together on the strand so the whole top of the tree just looks off.

    I love the purple/pink lights! I want a white tree with purple/pink lights next year.

    Reply

  24. Oh lord. I bought new fancy LED lights on sale after Christmas last year – but I didn’t get enough for the whole tree – so we had to commingle LED lights with the old regular lights – and the LEDs are bright white and the others are a yellowish white – and OMG. It requires me to drink more wine than usual.

    Reply

  26. Oh my, I could have written this post today!
    DH decided LED was important this year because they are more energy efficient. O-kayyyyyy. He buys two strands. We put them on, they cover half the tree. He goes back for two more. The whole time, I am saying, these are not white lights…they are BLUE! No, they are white, he says.

    Well, last week I ran into my neighbor who says, get this, “love the blue lights on your tree!” She could see them through the window.

    White lights, my ass. The tree belongs in a police station!

    Reply

  28. Mrs F insists on having reindeer flying across the window, with 20 lights inside each one. A single bulb was phut, so she ripped the guts – er, wires – from that reindeer and then asked me to replace the bulb and put it back together. Two fecking hours it took; it would have been longer but I dissected the neighboring reindeer to see how to put all the wires back in place.

    btw, do you like our tree?
    http://betterootthanin.blogspot.com/2008/12/our-xmas-tree-is-up.html

    Reply

  29. My husband got all obsessed with having large muticolored lights about 7 years ago (the kind we had just convinced my mother to throw out a couple of years before), and we ordered them over the internet. GOLLY were they expensive, but your post makes me feel better, because we have not had to replace them once.

    Reply

  30. We strung lights on the living Christmas tree in the front yard planted by the previous owners when we first moved here. But, the tree was about six feet tall at the time and is now twenty feet tall.

    This year I really wanted to light it so I convinced my husband to help me string lights all the way to the top (involving a long piece of PVC pipe with a makeshift hook on the end…)

    It was fabulous for a week…THEN the VERY TOP strand of lights burned out! No way to reach them!! The tree looks like Bossy’s before she finished it! ARGHHHHH!!!!!

    Reply

  31. Two years ago my husband and I purchased an artificial tree ( I like to take the decorations off around January-ish, but leave the tree up until Valentines Day) that is pre-strung with multi-colored lights. I think I will add some pink ones to it next year!!

    Oh, and I light a Balsam scented Yankee Candle and voila, fresh cut evergreen smell!!

    Reply

  34. I think I’m with Stella…purple makes me queasy. Gotta have the multi color lights and mostly all homemade ornamnents.

    Reply

  35. I didn’t even read what people wrote, yet. I had to fast forward to here to say how much I laughed, thank you Bossy, at your post today. I so understand. I know it can be a pain in the ars having a touch of the old OCD, but in the years to come the memories with be worth it. Enjoy having the whole Bossy clan home for the holidays.

    Reply

  37. Growing up, my family never strung lights on our tree, and I always thought it looked nice anyway. But at my dad’s house (my parents were divorced), it was another story. His idea of tree-trimming was hanging tin can lids from an old tree branch he’d found on the street.

    Reply

  41. I thought at the beginning they looked pink but was thinking it was a photography trick. My friend has the same purple Target lights! The tree looks great!

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  42. I love the purple lights.
    I am so resistant to change that in addition to our regular big green tree we have a smaller aluminum tree that we light up with a color wheel–just like when I was a young’un.

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  48. And thus, reason 5 billion and 2 why I have The World’s Smallest Fake Tree. So I can just wrap the darn lights around it while the tree rests in my lap, taking a total of 15 minutes, tops.

    But? Your tree is lovely and a festive pink. Which is a flattering color to everyone’s complexion, you know.

    Reply

  49. What else can one say, really? It’s pure awesome.

    We have lights that were buried in the basement from 8 years ago, the last time we were “home” — or *had* a home for Christmas. They still work! Or at least they did — the bottom rows are out now. Santa’s just going to have to get over it.

    Reply

  51. But how do you see Bossy’s Friend Martha when she stands in front of the tree?

    (And howzabouta photo of the whole finished tree. So everyone can critique I mean comment on the effect.) Love how Bossy’s Son has adapted the the family tradition.

    I always go for mixed colors that MUST have “purple” (magenta) in them. Except this year I bought some mixed LED lights with a wondrous cobalt blue, for the front window. Which is glowing in TEN INCHES of snow right now. Which is not a big deal to many of you, but it’s (a) the most I’ve seen in 12 years in Washington state and (b) the most I’ve ever experienced anywhere anytime in my life.

    Reply

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