Killing a bear

After an almost (I say almost because I had to peel my husband off the bathroom floor after he fainted. He's fine, just a scratch and a bump.) uneventful mental health day yesterday, I decided that it was time to take the Christmas tree down.  In the early years I kept the tree up until Epiphany.  More recently the trees don't seem to stay fresh as long so generally I take the tree down soon after New Year's Day.  I often experience a bit of anxiety before I take the tree down due to the enormity of the job but this year I managed to skip the anxiety.

Picture this: an 8ft. tree with approximately 850 lights (9 strings), 9 strands of garland and several 100 ornaments (someday I will count them to satisfy my curiosity), treetop star-light and a bear.  How tough can this be, right?  Not as tough as it used to be.  It never occurred to me to ask for help as I considered it to be my job.  This year Don is retired so he and the cat (Bubba) volunteered.  What a difference having help makes!  It went so much faster and no anxiety!  The garland was falling down what with the branches hanging south so all it took was a bit of a tug to take the garland off.  I managed to reach all but the ornaments at the top, so Don removed those.  Then we tackled the lights, the star and Rupert Walleye Bear.  Once we were sure that we had removed everything, Don hauled the tree out to the backyard to cut it into little pieces for our Chimania.

So what does killing a bear have to do with a denuded Christmas tree?  Killing a bear is how my dad referred to getting a tedious job done. Since it was so much easier to take the tree down than in previous years because of Don's help, no bears were killed in the process.