The Tale of a Dried Up Christmas Tree

I always make it my goal to keep up my Christmas tree and decorations until the Epiphany - the day the Three Kings "allegedly" showed up at the manger bearing gifts (I say "allegedly" because who knows if they showed up 12 days after Christmas or months later or even years later - and supposedly Jesus was really born in May or June, but for arguments' sake - and for the sake of the Church year - let's say they showed up on January 6th and that's the day I like to keep all of my Christmas decorations up until).

Well this year the kings showed up the same day Bruce and I took off for Pennsylvania - so I left a quickly dying tree and hoped it wouldn't spontaneously combust while I was gone.

Combust it did not but when we got home I did find half the needles on the ground and the ones that miraculously stayed attached were as crispy as burnt bacon.

So today, while Bruce was at work, I started the task of taking decorations down, packing them away and getting back to some sense of normal in our apartment.  Other than losing another quarter of the needles as I fought with strands of lights and ribbon, the removal process went fairly smoothly ...

I almost look organized!!

And then came the amateur mistake:  Trying to remove a seven foot tree that I did not even help bring in while it was alive.

The aftermath.

Dear American Auto Industry,

Find a way to run your cars on dirty water and dried up pine needles.  I'm telling you - it's a GOLD MINE.

Now, this layer of pine needles might not have been such a big issue - if it weren't for the fact that the filter on my vacuum needs to be replaced.

So after spending two hours on my hands and knees picking up the big pieces and unsuccessfully vacuuming up the little pieces, I called Bruce and said, "Hey, I think there's something wrong with our vacuum.  And oh yeah - YOU'RE COOKING DINNER TONIGHT.  I love you!!"

I'm starting to understand why people buy artificial trees.

And why I've always taken down my tree when Bruce was home.