Decorating a Christmas Tree

I've started on my tree.  I am so far behind with my Christmas prep that I hardly know where to start.  All of my Thanksgiving cooking for the shelter broke my cooktop and one of my ovens.  Not a good situation for this type of year and a huge concern about my cooking future concerning the shelter.  The repair person can't get here until next Monday.  So, I have a lot to figure out between then and now. I spent the morning on the phone with a Wolf rep trying to figure it all out.

 I brought the tree in the house and got it in the stand. It looks crooked.

 After years and years of decorating trees, this is how I install mine so I can have peace of mind.  I screwed a tree stand into an old heavy end table.  then I duck taped the stand to the table for added security.  Next, I put two heavy rocks in the bottom to weight down the stand.  Not very attractive at this point but it will all be covered with a tree skirt.

 I straitened it and then turned it over to my husband to add the lights.  I went to bed.

 In the morning, I found this.  Good work husband!  He is great with tree lights. A good tip for lighting your tree is to not waste time wrapping the trunk and branches.  Just stuff handfuls of lights in towards the trunk and then gently spread them out over the branches as you pull your hand out of the tree, you get great distribution and you have a better lit tree. They go on and come off very easily too. A lot of these lights twinkle and the tree looks magical.  Now I have to dive in and finish it.  Hopefully you will get to see the finished tree tomorrow.