Trimming the Tree: Part 2

Well, we had a DISASTER last night!

Our ten foot live Christmas tree with a 1 gallon reservoir full of water came crashing down. All the way down to the floor.  With me almost underneath.

Ornaments shattered.  Water spilled.  Presents were soaked.  

Since Jimmy was on call the day the we bought our tree, he was not here to check to make sure it was properly put in the stand.  Clay and I did that!  (But apparently we did not know what exactly to check.)  The tree began leaning to one side a few days ago.  Last night, I got underneath the tree to try to straighten it.  I failed.  The tree crashed!  Thankfully, Jimmy was home last night, and it took all seven of us over an hour to do damage control.

We unplugged the lights, stood the tree back up, and took off every single ornament.  We picked up millions of pieces of broken glass, filler from a snow globe, tree needles, etc.  Jimmy secured the tree, and set up fans to dry out the floor, the rugs (one on either side of the tree), and the tree branches.  We vacuumed.  We went to bed!

This morning at 7:00 AM I began cleaning up again.  I carefully sorted the ornaments and packed away all of the breakable, very heavy, and fragile ones.  Jimmy says the tree's stability has been compromised, and in case it falls again, I don't want to lose any more ornaments.

We saved some of the broken ones to be glued back together.  Since my children know the origin of every ornament on our tree, it is important to us to save all of them we can.

 I woke the children up shortly after 7:00 this morning, turned on the Christmas music, and we decorated the tree.  AGAIN.
This time we used about half of our ornaments.  Even the some of the ones that were sturdy or light, we chose not to put back on this year.  I don't want the tree to be too weighted down.  When we had finished redecorating the tree, I sent the older three children to get started on their school.  Then I carefully repacked the unused ornaments, sorting them and discarding broken pieces.  Then I vacuumed again.  I put the tree skirt back around the tree, and put the now dried out presents back under the tree (one of the gifts had to be unwrapped last night and aired out).  I vacuumed again.

And now it is all done.  And now it is 11:00!  Time for me to begin school with the children, only 3 hours late!