Shortly after Thanksgiving it occurred to Holly that she should be decorating her house for Christmas. Usually she really likes decorating for Christmas, but this year she was lacking her normal holiday perkiness and suffering from post-Turkey malaise.

She couldn’t even bear to think of the tree assemblage task ahead of her. Her beautiful faux-tree of 15 years has the downside of obscenely tedious assembly.

Each limb is individually added.

Each limb is individually arranged.

Each limb is individually responsible for Holly’s holiday fatigue.

Then, Holly remembered that she had another option.

A smaller tree.

A hinged-limb tree.

A pre-lit tree.

Hallelujah!

Holly will try to pass off the smaller, hinged-limb, pre-lit tree with the inferior exterior in place of her usual tree for the sake of saving her sanity and 5 hours and 40 minutes of tree assembly.

Holly mustered up the last few ounces of strength she had left to coax the box of the smaller, hinged-limb, pre-lit tree with the inferior exterior down the stairs. She considered how she wouldn’t have minded being crushed under it’s weight saving her 20 minutes of tree assembly.

Bah-humbug Holly!

Holly’s spirits were lifted when she opened the box and remembered how easily the tree could be put together.

Deck the Halls, Holly!

Holly even started hearing holiday bells in her head.  Not the annoying kind, the kind from Carol of the Bells or maybe they were sleigh bells.  Holly doesn’t really remember the actual sounds, she just knows they were tinkling holiday thoughts.

She may have even started humming a holiday tune.

Things were going so well that Holly started Rocking Around the Christmas Tree…

Let’s plug in the lights!

First uh-oh when tree plugged inPre-lit might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

20% lit might have been a little closer to reality.

No problem…Holly will check the bulbs and change the strand fuses!

Holly attended to the lighting issue with increasing holiday irritation.

Holiday irritation turned into a holiday trip to Target to pick up some additional multi-colored light strands to obscure the pre-lit, multi-colored darkness.

Come on boys!  Let’s go to Target!

After some Target cart weaving and dodging of hundreds of Christmas shoppers, Holly found what she was looking for…a HUGE holiday display of multi-colored lights.

It was like Target had read her mind.

She loaded 6 boxes into her cart.

After some Target cart weaving and dodging of hundreds of Christmas shoppers, she checked out with her six boxes of holiday cheer.

Come on boys!  Let’s load up the minivan and head home!

As soon as Holly got home she tore open the first box of multi-colored light strands to obscure the pre-lit multi-colored darkness only to find that the lights were embedded on cording that was…

WHITE!

White?

Who needs WHITE corded multi-colored lights?

Holly thought briefly about trying to pass the white corded multi-colored lights off on the smaller, hinged-limb, pre-lit tree with the inferior exterior until she actually considered what that might look like…

Come on, boys!  Let’s go to Target!

After some Target cart weaving and dodging of hundreds of Christmas shoppers, Holly found what she was looking for…the return counter.

She got in line.

Finally, a 17 year old Target employee was available to help her return the white stranded multi-colored lights originally purchased to obscure the pre-lit, multi-colored darkness.

Holly couldn’t contain her Scroogishness and gave the 17 year old Target employee a lecture about product placement, product pushing and proper display technique. Target’s 17 year old employee nodded and turned to help the next disgruntled Target shopper.

After some Target cart weaving and dodging of hundreds of Christmas shoppers, Holly found her way back to the HUGE holiday display of WHITE stranded multi-colored lights.  She searched high and she searched low for the green stranded variety.  Finally in a corner, under some other lights she located what she needed.

Holly was not jolly.

She loaded 6 boxes of the revised multi-colored lights into her cart.

After some Target cart weaving and dodging of hundreds of Christmas shoppers, she checked out with her six boxes of revised holiday cheer.

Come on boys!  Let’s load up the minivan and head home!

Almost exactly 6 hours after Holly started the tree trimming project, she stood back to admire her work on the smaller, hinged-limb, pre-lit tree with the inferior exterior and revised multi-colored lights…

Despite Holly’s holiday spirit being completely crushed, the smaller, hinged-limb, pre-lit tree with the inferior exterior and revised multi-colored lights didn’t look too bad.

The tree was now ready to be trimmed with a lot of breakable ornaments that likely will not survive another holiday season in Holly’s house of three boys, but let’s not focus on that right now…

Come on boys!  Let’s trim the tree!

And so the tree was decorated with care in hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be there.

BUT before he could get there, Holly walked into her living room a few days later to this…

Pa rumpa pum pum.