Thanksgiving and the Big Tree

I like to cook...no, I love to cook.  So, Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite day of the year.  And because it is my favorite day of the year I don't like anyone to mess with it.  What I mean to say is that every fourth Thursday in November I am in charge.  Things are done my way.  I decide the menu, the guests, the time people arrive, eat and leave.  Wait a minute....this is the way Thanksgiving used to be...back before it became the day that we also get our Christmas tree.
Cutting down and putting up the tree was always our day after Thanksgiving tradition...until three years ago when my husband built a great room, decided that we needed a fourteen foot tree and that it should be put up on Turkey Day.  And yes, I said fourteen feet.   Before we built our great room Mike's biggest complaint about our house was that we had to have our Christmas tree in the kitchen.  It was the only place that would work since we had a wood stove in the living room that would have undoubtedly killed it within a week.   The tree in the kitchen got him so mad each year that I'm pretty sure that's why we have a great room now.
Well, a tree like the one we now put up requires strategy.  I suppose that is why we have to put it up on Thanksgiving.  Friends and family are in high spirits anticipating the start of the holiday season, and what could be more festive than putting up a tree?  Before they know it, they are hauling a two hundred pound tree onto a trailer, pulling it through our garage and forcing it through a tiny door that it has no business going through.  Yep, we sucker them in every year.

And that is how a Christmas tree stole my Thanksgiving.  No more Macy's parade...too many people too busy almost knocking the tv over.  No nicely cleaned carpets....they're all covered with muddy boots and pine needles.  No holiday music playing in the background....just Mike and his brother shouting directions at eachother.  At the end of the day, though, we all know at least one thing that we are thankful for.  Thank goodness we don't have to do that again for another year!

This is the first year that we brought home our big tree.  As you can see it didn't want to come through the door.

It's a definite that someone is going to end up falling on the ground while trying to pull the tree in.  The second year we put it up was Steve's turn.