The Sparks went to Washington...: Oh, Christmas Tree, Oh, Christmas Tree....

We've had a busy day today. We were up with the lark and had bought our Christmas tree by 9am! The local school was selling them, so we popped along and selected a suitable candidate...small enough to fit in the house, evenly shaped, and most importantly, one that won't shed all its needles in the first 2 weeks!! At least with hardwood floors I don't need to worry about treading on needles in the carpet for the next 6 months...

We popped down to the big Target afterwards. We needed to get a tree holder thingy, and whilst we were there I picked up another set of lights (you can never have too many!) - 100 lights for $2!! We stocked up on a selection of hats too...I cannot describe how biting the wind was yesterday! I was numb for most of the afternoon and well into the evening!! It was only the searingly hot Thai food that finally thawed me! I'm after a set of earmuffs too - my wee ears were sore last night. Stephen was trying on hats with built in ear flaps. It was hilarious to see - think Elmer Fudd and you'll be bang on target!!

Someone rear-ended us on the way to Target. We were stationary at a set of lights when there was this almighty thump. I briefly thought that the rear suspension had collapsed, but then Stephen started to swear. He got out of the car, and pointed out to the woman driving that people generally brake when they see stationary traffic (she was talking to her friend and not looking at the road so didn't see that we were stopped)...thankfully there wasn't really much damage to our car - just a few minor scrapes. She didn't seem terribly bothered...just apologised in a halfhearted way. You see this kind of thing a lot here. People think nothing of using someone else's bumper as an auxiliary braking system! In fact, in wet weather it actually goes from being the auxiliary system to the primary one....

I've just spent nearly 3 hours decorating the tree. It looks lovely! (All Christmas trees look lovely!) I am really pleased with my crystal droplets. I bought them on line a couple of weeks ago. They are actually chandelier droplets which I have modified (which is the reason it took 3 hours to decorate the tree!). They were incredibly inexpensive too - only 33 cents each!!
I was just putting the finishing touches to my outdoor lights (you can never have too many!), when someone came round selling firewood. Where were they 2 weeks ago??? We bought a stack of logs, so now have enough to keep us going through the winter now we have a working furnace - it would have lasted us a week at the rate we were burning wood when it was the sole heat source!