Step 3 – Set up the tree (no, I will not make a “wooden erection” joke)
Hopefully before purchasing the tree, you made the necessary preparations within your home. This usually involves moving furniture, clearing a path, placing the stand, and preventing your cat/children from climbing the tree (suggestion: drowning). After you weave your way through the path you cleared with the tree in your arms, you will need to carefully plant it in your tree stand. There are many different stands available for purchase, but you can do no wrong with the patented, sturdy, unfailing brand of whatever stand I have. After you latch it down in a precariously upright position, you must carefully align it so it is perpendicular to your floor.
Ha ha ha, I’m joking of course. This is impossible. All pine trees are specifically grown so that their middles never form a straight line. Just do the best you can to ensure it doesn’t topple over if someone so much as breaths on it.
Step 4 – Wrap the lights and tinsel
Hopefully the tree is sturdy, because you are about to embark upon the most difficult task of your life. Stringing lights around a tree by yourself is similar to trying to cut out your own appendix. It’s difficult, messy, and there is a very real possibility that you’ll kill yourself before it’s through.
The first challenge is to simply get the lighting. This is particularly difficult because of the unique physical laws that only apply to wired items kept in storage. Any wiring that is kept out of sight for more than twenty-four hours will, without fail, coalesce into a round bundle with roughly the same density as a neutron star. It is your task to spend the next several hours untangling it.
After you have your lights prepared, it’s time to put them on the tree. You start at the top and wind the lights down the tree in a counter-clockwise direction (clockwise if you’re in the southern hemisphere). You’ll want to make sure the line is carefully balanced by branches at regular intervals, but don’t set the lights too deep. No, no, that’s too deep. Bring them out more. … That’s too much now; put them further back into the tree. Gosh, you’re just not good at this at all, are you?
Well, just do the best you can. Rather, do a little bit better than the best you can. And, by “a little bit,” I, of course, mean “a lot”.
Step 5 – Hang the star and ornaments
You have done it. You have nearly reached the end of the list. By now, the tree should light up nicely (by your lighting, not by fire). This final step should be simple. Take the ornaments that you and your family have been steadily acquiring since the Paleolithic Era and hang them in an aesthetically pleasing way upon the tree. There’re no particular rules for this. Just go nuts!
When you feel ready, turn out the room’s lights and plug in the tree. I can guarantee that, despite all of your best efforts to the contrary, your Christmas tree will look beautiful. At least, for half a second before all of the lighting blows a fuse.
After hitting President Obama in the lip during a basketball game, Rey Decerega is scheduled to be executed on the front lawn of the White House at 09:00 EST tomorrow morning. The execution, which takes the form of a public lynching, is intended to be “an example to others,” says press secretary Robert Gibbs. “The public needs to be taught that this sort of activity will not be tolerated.”
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