Take That, Costco!

Anyone who knows the Asburys knows we are some serious Costco fanatics around here. Okay, mostly Brian. But I have to agree, their return policy is pretty amazing.

Last year we bought a pre-lit Christmas tree at Costco, but one branch of lights was out. Since it was a crazy hassle to bring it home (by myself with the two kids, *barely* squeezing the two-ton tree into our trunk without folding the seats down for the car seats, in what might have been Boston's only hurricane on record), I simply turned the broken branch to the back and took advantage of the aforementioned return policy, taking the tree back after the holiday.

So this year I could hardly contain myself pre-Thanksgiving (though I did), and Brian headed out to Costco shortly after the holiday to get our new tree. Much to my disappointment, all the the trees had been recalled for a faulty branch of lights!! Sad. "But don't worry," they assured. "Don't dismay! We will be getting new trees in the next week."

Okay, I could probably handle a week of waiting. Even though the girls were asking nearly every minute about the tree. We put up the few other Christmas decorations we have, but they clearly were not filling the need. Every outing, every errand, Libby asked if we were on our way to get the Christmas tree. "Don't worry, love," I assured. "We'll get that tree soon enough."

Brian checked Costco a week later, and still no trees. Another week after that, and I took the matter up with Customer Service, where the sad truth I was dreading was revealed:

No Christmas trees were coming!

So sad! What was I going to do? I didn't want to get a tree from somewhere else for this exact reason-- in case something went wrong, I wanted to be able to return it! But we didn't have a tree stand and we're going out of town for the holidays, so a fresh tree wasn't really an option, either. But breaking my little girls' hearts that were set on a Christmas tree? Also not an option.

So we improvised. =)

First we bought a roll of green wrapping paper and cut out a couple of tree shapes.


Then we set to work painting...


...and gluing...


... and glittering....


(Reeve suspiciously had quite a bit of paint on her fingers and up both nostrils at the end of this crafting day!)


After a day of letting the projects dry, we set to cutting circles (a.k.a. "ornaments") out of our well-decorated papers...


We "hung" them on our trees with scotch tape...


And VOILA!


Two perfectly Christmasy trees!




They don't smell like pine (not that our fake one would anyway) and they don't light up (which apparently the recalled ones didn't do either!), but they sure are doing the trick. The girls are so proud of their trees, and even happy with having two trees instead of just one!

So don't worry, Costco, we can be friends again. No harm done, and all is well in the Asbury household.