Christmas Tree

Anyone who has seen our condo knows that we don't have a whole lot of extra space, so the question of what to do for a Christmas tree was a little bit of a challenge. We don't really have the storage space for an artificial tree of any significant size, and I wasn't sure how the cats would react to a real one. We ended up opting for a Charlie Brown tree (complete with Linus's blanket) from Urban Outfitters. From the minute I took it out of the box, Simon and Susie were far more interested in the artificial pine needles than I would have ever expected.

Since we still had the cat problem, we decided that the tree would have to go on the ledge above the sliding doors (the only place in the whole house that S & S are unable to reach). This presented another problem, since I wanted to put some lights on the tree, but there is no electrical outlet up on the ledge. A couple of days later, I found the perfect solution to the problem: solar powered LEDs! They actually work really well. During the day, the lights automatically shut themselves off and the solar cells begin to charge a battery. At night, the lights come on and stay on until the battery runs out (which usually turns out to be way past our bed-time).

It's not exactly overwhelming, but at least we have a place to hang our few ornaments and some colored lights in the evening!