We have our tree! Bought last Sunday and left to drip water, needles and dirt on the floor for two days. Oh lawsy it was filthy! Looked great when propped sideways in the pile of lesser trees, in the pitch-black gas-station parking lot where we bought it. Not so lovely when it left smears of dirt on the door frames and walls as we dragged it inside.

After it dried off, we wanted to put the lights on first, as you do.

When it was time to do the lights, I sort of “forgot” that putting the lights on the tree is my job. Ok, I tried to pretend that I forgot. iDJ is always so happy and, um, proactive, about putting the lights in our windows. I pretty much attempted to make him think that all of the lights are his job. He copped on right away but decided he would still give it a try. Win! Sort of.

I was in the room when he started. For moral support. Because when he does anything new, he requires an audience, and everything he does must be narrated. As you do. Of course, I got to hear a few complaints/comments on how I wrapped up the lights for storage the year before (well, yah, I wrapped them up in a way that made sense to me. I do the damn lights, after all). And I had to give tips on where to start (leave a bit extra so you can poke it up into the tree-topper, don’t forget). Par for the course – I’m used to his foibles by now. And I had beer. Nothing could perturb me.

A little bit of back story now. Just to set the scene, and give you an idea of how very brave iDJ was in offering to put the lights on the tree.

For the last two years we’ve bought a short-needled tree, of a totally unknown genus, because I don’t like the long-needled pines they have here. They are too soft and droopy for all my heavy ‘Merican ornaments, and, well, I just prefer a tree with shorter needles. For me a Christmas tree is not any variety of pine. It took me five years to convince my hubby that a short-needle tree wouldn’t kill him.

You see, he has told me that about ten years ago, a tree did try to kill him. He was putting lights on a tree at his workplace and got poked by the needles. Apparently he had a very bad reaction to this. I’m a very unsympathetic person and while I remember the story, I didn’t take it seriously at all.

However, when he started to put the lights up, he only got this far:

Yeah, it’s hard to see. It’s my only photographic evidence, however. He wrapped a tiny bit of the string of lights around the very top of the tree and then he had to stop. Immediately, and quite vocally.

Because he got poked in the dick.

Yep.

He got pricked in the prick. Lanced in the langer. Skewered in the sausage. Needled in the…well, I’ll stop with the comparisons there, I think.

Needless to say, that was the end of him putting lights on our tree that evening.

Being the unsympathetic person that I am, I said that it was no problem, I would finish the job the next day. And then I bit my lip until Oirish Tirsday when I could giggle over the story with Socks.

Socks got to laughing so hard over the idea of iDJ wussing out and running away from a tree that it became contagious and I forgot to be grumpy and realised there was indeed something funny in my life after all.

But it gets better. Socks loved this story so much that she told her hubby, Bear. Today, I got this photo in my inbox (face changed to protect the sarcastic):

This is Bear, making fun of my hubby from 3,000 miles away. I love this man!

And yes, when putting the ornaments on the tree tonight, iDJ got poked in the dick again. Sigh.