This morning, as I drove my oldest and youngest kids to school, I watched the early morning hustle and bustle of a medium-sized European city and saw the sight I wait for all year.  Christmas Trees were delivered to their lots last night!  Yea!

My American friends will be jealous, because the gorgeous, fresh trees are only about 12 Euro (but isn’t that about a hundred bucks, these days? - just kidding! It’s closer to twenty.) I remember the trees we got in Arizona - dried out within the first week.  It felt like we were playing Russian Roulette when we turned on the lights.

Of course, thinking about Christmas trees gets me thinking about decorating - and dragging all those boxes out of the basement and up three floors to our apartment.  We’ve got ornaments that date back to the ’80s - though our cat has tried, on numerous occasions, to crush every delicate bulb.  And we’ve got strands of lights that have to be meticulously reviewed for broken and burned out bulbs every year.  Makes me wish I had LED mini lights instead. 

Funny thing about Germany - the land where Christmas trees originated - they still sell and use clip-on Christmas tree candles.  Scary! But Santa brings in and decorates the tree on Christmas Eve so the tree isn’t exposed to the fire for very long - probably just Christmas morning, though I have no confirmation of this.  It does concern me, though, when I see elderly people with hunched shoulders and shaking hands buying sets of real candles for their real trees.  I can’t believe there aren’t more fires.

But, we’re Americans so we tend to start decorating right after Thanksgiving and we bring the tree in right away and decorate it ourselves (a lot of German families are moving toward this, as well).  Since Germany is such an environmentally aware country, it would make sense to use LED mini lights here because they use 90% less energy and burn cool for about 50,000 hours.  I can’t even count the dollars that would save me.  And they’re not just rope lights anymore.  You can get them in all the same shapes and colors you’re used to having with incandescent lights.

So, we’ll probably get the house ready for the holiday this week and pick up our tree next weekend.  Now, to get the gifts bought, wrapped and placed under the tree - my biggest challenge!  Oh! and cookies… and pies…

Tschüss!