Decorating the Christmas Tree is Fun! ... right?

I guess I owe my parents an apology for the pain I (me and my siblings) put them through as children while putting up the Christmas tree. I remember every year we fought over who got to put the top on the tree and who got more tinsel to throw on the tree. So many of these things you think should be fun family activities more often then not I am learning turn out to be patience testers for the parents ... as was putting up the tree this year. We tried to put it up last night but the stand was junk and wouldn't hold our old fake tree up straight. Dave spent FOREVER fiddling with it (not in the best mood) trying to get the tree to stay straight. I suggested duct tape (which I am sure would make my father proud as he believes that duct tape can fix anything, including the hem on his pants that are too long). We finally sort of got that taken care of only to find that half of the strands of lights on the tree were out, some for no apparent reason, some looking black and burned out. We finally gave up and threw the non-working lights and the tree out and Dave went to Home Depot today and got us a beautiful, pre-lit tree. So this evening we were on to the picture perfect family tree decorating activity for the Barnhisel family Christmas tree. Not exactly. Even before the tree was done being decorated Eric had broken an ornament and I was ready to string my wild and crazy boys up on the tree as well. Decorating the Christmas tree is supposed to be fun, right?

This picture represents the night very well.

But at least the tree is up and Dave did a beautiful job on it!