Skinny Tree, Fat Tree

Do you remember when I mentioned the design flaw in our Christmas Tree here?  Well below is a photo of that tree. Can you guess what the design flaw is? Well, there are actually two. Try to guess.

The first design flaw is that we have four kids. A skinny tree is not for families of six. Families of six that love to do crafts and that have 3 out of the 4 kids in school and who always bring home hand made ornaments. I love home made ornaments, I actually still have some from when I was in elementary school, just a few years ago. And they too go on the tree every year. Trying to squeeze all of the ornaments on this tiny tree was impossible, add to that the fact that we have many years to go of ornament making and we are going to run out of room. I actually think that we already have.

Now for the second design flaw, I will give you a hint: gifts . . . that is right, there is no room to put gifts under the tree! I have many nieces and nephews, extended family, friends, etc. and need to have room under the tree. This one is so skinny and so low to the ground that we cannot fit any but the tiniest gifts under the tree.

The day after Thanksgiving, I was so excited and so were my girls that we put up our tree in record time. Only to stare at it and think, why didn't I go get a new, bigger tree. Oh I know why, have you priced trees lately? We have a fake one obviosly. And this one has the built in lights. I am not a huge fan of the prelit trees. If you look closely, you can tell that the top left side of the tree has all the white lights blown on it. I had to try and disguise it with extra colored lights.

Trying to find a tall, fat tree without lights and for less than $100 was proving to be impossible. I looked all over and the cheapest I found was still going to cost about $180, and I was not willing to part with that much, I would just live with the skinny tree. If I only bought small, tiny presents, the tree wouldn't look so bad right?

Well, I was at Wal-Mart last Sunday for something else, with all 4 of my kids and I thought I would just take a peek at the trees. Low and behold was a beautiful tree, with no lights, 7.5 feet high and 4.5 feet wide. That was plenty big enough for all the future ornaments and to stuff gifts underneath. And here comes the best part, it was only $78.

Well, being a Sunday, before Christmas, their help was nowhere to be found. After standing with another lady, who was buying the same tree, only with colored lights attached, for about 45 minutes, someone finally came. But she was from grocery. Oh well, she was able to help us.

No they didn't have that tree in stock, yes we could buy the display and here is the best part, they would take 10 percent off, for being the floor model! So I paid $71 for the tree! It was so worth the wait and I simply have to buy a container to store it in as they didn't have the box anymore.

So, I went home, took all the ornaments off the skinny tree, and took off the lights. Then took the skinny tree down. Then put up the new tree, and the new lights (my husband splurged on LED lights) and the ornaments on the new fat tree.

Here is the new fat tree, with lots of room underneath!

This fat tree definately works for me!

This post linked to Works for Me Wednesday.