this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Every other year that we've been married, we've had a real Christmas Tree.  Mainly because we had nowhere to store an artificial one, but also because after years and years of a fake one when I was growing up, I wanted a real one!

This year, I decided I didn't want a real one.  I was tired of paying so much for one, when I knew if we just spent a little more, we could have one that was reusable.  For the most part, The Tall One agreed.  What we didn't agree on was a price point (or, as TTO put it, we could agree if we had more money).  I had always thought that if I was going to go the fake route, I wanted to buy a nice looking one.  This year I decided it didn't matter.  The tree brings the feeling of Christmas into our home and it makes my children smile every time they see it.  Does it really need to look perfect?

TTO wanted it to look good, and if we couldn't afford a real-enough looking one, he wanted to get a real one.  I refused, at this point in our financial lives, to pay $200 for a not-real tree that we only looked at for one month out of the year.  We just weren't quite seeing eye to eye on this. 

TTO conceded and told me that as long as I only paid like $50 for it, he didn't really care what it looks like.  So we picked up a 6 1/2 ft. Spencer Pine (prelighted - is that really worth it though?  I found it kind of annoying when it came to putting the tree together) at Target on sale for $56.  Basically about $20 than we would have paid for a real tree, but we can use it again (that's the theory at least).

We decorated it last night, and you know what?  We all think it looks absolutely perfect.