O' Clothesline Tree, O' Clothesline Tree...

...how lovely are thy blouses.

Thanksgiving has passed, and brought forth the time of Christmas.  A beautiful time of merriment and insanity.  Regardless, I am a bit nostalgic around Christmas and really enjoy the cheesy movies, the strings of lights, the decorations, and you get the idea.  It's a beautiful time of year.  

During my divorce, while seperating our possesions, I decided to give our pre-lit christmas tree to my ex-husband, since he has kids.  So, now that Christmastime is here, I needed a tree.  I wanted a pre-lit-tree-in-a-box.  (As much as I love real trees, I love them better in the ground where they belong and stay alive forever; hence the name "evergreen".) 

Having been to see the Black Friday deals and the back of my eyelids Saturday... I bummed around eating leftover turkey on Sunday... and lo and behold, it was then back-to-work Cyber Monday.  I did a little on-line browsing and found a great deal on a tree at a certain big name hardware store.  51% off.  If I use my store card, I get an extra 5% off.  Awesome!  So I bought it online, and requested store pick-up.

After work Monday we get to the store and they tell me that they ran out of stock on the tree I purchased, but they would "upgrade" me to a similar tree for the same price.  Wow!  Okay, great!

So, I go home with my upgraded pre-lit-tree-in-a-box.  But I wasn't quite ready to put it up, so the box sat in the living room for a few days.

Thursday night I decided it was time to put up the tree.  I was in a festive mood.  I had been singing carols all day, and watching the hallmark channel Christmas marathon. 

So I clear out the spot and I sweep and swiffer up the floor, even used pledge (hardwood floor).  I get my handy pair of scissors and enthusiastically cut the tape around the edges of the box flaps... I feel almost like a kid in a candy store as I open the first flap... the second flap... and I see the underside to a roll of carpet.  I look at my roommate and say, "Huh?" and I pull on the carpet a bit. I actually thought to myself, "When did they start wrapping trees in carpet?" As I tug a bit more on the carpet, I find clothes. Women's clothes. "What!?" And then we both begin to just laugh. What else can you do?

I called the store and told the manager, "Hun, you're store got jipped."  I explained it all to him,  I said, I think someone returned the "tree" box for a full refund, but all they really returned is clothes wrapped in a carpet remnant.  People are crazy!

So I took the box of clothes and carpet back to the store and got another box that ACTUALLY had a tree in it.  Glad they gave me an actual tree... I thought I'd have to hang a clothesline in order to decorate this carpet/clothes tree that laid before me. 

Merry Christmas to me, I have an actual pre-lit-tree!  Yippee!!!!