10ft Xmas trees do NOT fit in 8ft stands!

We went Friday night and bought our Xmas tree. We highly recommend purchasing live trees from Target. We have bought ours there the last 3 years and the quality and price are great!
We went with a 9.5ft Douglas fir. We were able to do the taller tree since our ceilings are raised now. We didn't really think about the tree stand we had not working - we assumed it would. After we got the tree we ran a few more errands then went home to show the new tree its home for December.
Once we brought it in the house we put it in our 8ft stand. The fit was snug - like your favorite pair of jeans after the holidays. There was about a 1/4 of an inch of wiggle room between the side of the tree and the stand. We stood the tree up and it had the look of a tree that had enjoyed too much nog and was leaning! We took the stand off, moved it around and put it back on. Still leaning. Finally after several adjustments and a breakdown (note to self, after a stressful week - having your Christmas tree not work is cause for water works).
No matter how we put the tree in the stand – it continued to mock us by leaning. Even after wedging some records to counter lean the opposite direction it didn’t look so good. By now it was about 1015pm and we were determined to get the tree up before we went to bed. So we figured we’d run to Wal-Mart and buy a new stand, but they were out (how are you out of stands on 12 days before Christmas?) so we called Target – out. We drove to Lowe’s thinking they would have one but both them and Home Depot close at 9pm (don’t they realize it’s the holidays?). By this time we were tired and out of resources for a new stand so we decided to wait until Saturday morning to buy a new stand.
It all worked out for the best though – we woke early Saturday (well Rick woke early and then pestered me until I was awake too) and went to Lowe’s to look for a stand. Thankfully we got their last 10ft tree stand (in fact we they had to take one of the store trees out of it in order to sell it to us!) and they had all of their Holiday decorations on sale for 50% off so for the price the stand would normally have been we were able to get the stand and a new cute Holiday doormat!
Now our tree is up now and is comfie in its correctly sized stand!

17 days till Christmas!!

YAY! I love Christmas! And thanks to the good planning graces of Rick we are almost 100% DONE with christmas shopping! I know, I know I am usually the day before Xmas Eve shopper but not this year. My wonderful husband has kept us on track so that we only have a few more gifts to purchase. I also have not yet had the pleasure of going and finding him goodies - but then I am done!!

I am so hoping this year will be as lay back as last year. GO CHRISTMAS!

Recommitted

Okay - it's not even Christmas but I am having an early New Year's resolution:

I will blog regularly
I will post interesting and zany blogs
I will not leave my faith readers hanging for months on end
I will blog regularly

So hold me to this - If I don't post at least once a week - whip me with emails!!