Forgive me for bombarding everyone. I have to take advantage of a bit of free time when I get it!

Please look past the unfinished nature of the entire upstairs. We literally had to gut the entire house down to 2x4's and have been "rebuilding" it since then. We made the upstairs livable while we concentrated more on the downstairs, so we still have base boards missing and plain drywall ceilings....one day! :)

This is the upstairs game room and the small antique toy tree. Forgive the laundry that "mysteriously" appeared in the bottom of the photo....I can't seem to get it all together!

And here is the tree in our master bedroom.... This tree has become my nemesis and I think that I've come to HATE it! It's about 5-6 years in the making and I think I keep making it worse. It started out with an after Christmas bargain hunting shopping spree at a high-end seasonal shop in OKC. I spied a tree they had there all decked out in icicles, purple icy berries, icy white ornaments, pale gold accents and pale gold, silver and white ribbon. It was gorgeous and I snapped up all the appropriate accessories to create my own version at 75% off of course. I lovingly packed all my new found treasure away in anticipation of the following year.

The following decorating season soon arrived and I couldn't wait to tackle my new elegant tree destined for our bedroom. I pulled out a spare 6' tree I had on hand and began to assemble what I felt would be a master piece. As layer after layer of glitz and glam was applied, it soon became apparent. I had not created a master piece, I had created the bride of frankenstein! This thing turned out looking like a fat bride in a gaudy dress! This dumpy little 6' tree was horrid!

So I stepped back, took a deep breath and decided that the next year she just needed to go on a 7' slim tree and needed a few more additions. Next year came and while she no longer looked like a fat bride, she now looked like a wedding tree. I'm all about romance, but at that point we had been married for over 15 years and this tree frankly just didn't fit in our room.

Last year, another bit of genius hit! Bound and determined to beat this darn tree, I decided it needed some color. My brilliant color choice....pale green! Surely this would transform this daunting wedding tree that over the years had become a monster.

This year, as I began to put this tree together I knew that I would finally have it right. I put the final touches on, stepped back to admire, and wanted to scream.... I brought DH up for his opinion. He stepped back, made a hmmmm noise and simply said it looked like a blankety-blank garden wedding fairy!

I finally had to admit to myself that over the years of trying to defeat this poor defenseless tree, I was blinded to the fact that this style of tree does not fit our house nor us! We have nothing else remotely like that ANYWHERE in our house, not even the colors. So I think that I have to admit defeat, give up and start over from scratch.

I think she would be a beautiful tree in the appropriate setting, but she is just totally out of place here. I no that what I have spent on her over the years has been deeply discounted, but it still just makes me sick. Oh well, I think next year she will get donated to DS's school's annual auction and hopefully will find a good and loving home. Back to the after Christmas sales!

Again look past the "unfinished" nature of the upstairs!

Alex