My $1,300* Christmas tree

Soooo, I hope you like looking at other people’s Christmas ornaments! (They’ve got to be better than looking at other people’s vacation pictures, right? Wait, where are you going?) Anyway, here are a few of my favorite new ornaments that I picked up on an ornament-buying extravaganza with my mom a couple weekends ago.

Sorry for the crappy picture quality. I wanted to get this post up, but waited till it got dark to take the pictures and blah, blah, blah, not even the fanciest of cameras can turn me into a decent photographer. ANYWAY! Here you go:

The tree, all almost-8-feet of it

Garlic clove

Pretty pink pinecone

Candy cane ball with jingly bells inside

Pretty green ball with fuzzy white stripes

A wine glass, naturally (well, not these days, but whatever, let’s not talk about that)

One of three very pretty, sparkly snowflakes (this picture DOES NOT do the snowflake justice)

Chris’s pipe wrench (not to be confused with a crescent wrench, for which we also have an ornament. Of course.)

*Technically, it was free. Technically, I guess we stole it, although that makes it sound like we’re criminals, which we’re totally not. I mean, sure, sometimes, occasionally, I steal pepper grinders (and fancy mustards and pint glasses) from restaurants, but I’m really not in the business of stealing Christmas trees.

Anyway, here’s what happened: While purchasing our $66 Christmas tree, the woman at the tree lot inadvertently charged our credit card card $660. And then when she tried to credit us, she instead charged our card $660. Again. AND THEN, since she didn’t know how to use her credit card machine (CLEARLY), she gave us the machine and the directions and made us figure out how to credit ourselves. I wasn’t really mad — just cold and hungry — because after years of working retail, I know that crabby people during the holidays can be a real bummer. HOWEVER, when all was said and done (fingers crossed — I’m still checking our bank daily to make sure the credits do go through) she tried to charge us the actual price of the Christmas tree. I looked at her and said, “We’re not buying that tree.” And that was that.

OR SO I THOUGHT. I ended up pumping gas next to her this morning. I know, what are the odds, right? It took me a second to recognize it was her — if she’d been sporting her reindeer antlers, I totally would have known right away — but it was definitely her. And then of course I jumped in my car and sped off, lest she recognize me, take down my license plate number, and report me to the police for Christmas tree theft. My statement to the cops would read only, “OH, I EARNED THAT TREE, BITCHES BUDDIES.”