Our White Christmas...Tree that is

Being as it's the start of December and, thus, the Christmas season, decorating has been foremost on my mind these days. I've already conned myself into putting up white lights outside. Ostensibly, those lights are to provide light for the stairs but deep down I know the truth. I'm dreaming of paper chains, popcorn garlands, and candy canes. My recipe book 'magically' falls open to the recipe for sugar cookies even though I'm looking for meatloaf. So what's keeping me from getting things decorated? The fact that my house is in bits and pieces yet. I'm constantly moving piles/furniture/construction materials from here to there to make room for something else. There is precious little room in the house too, since we aren't able to use the bedroom yet. So my forlorn decorations will have to wait. However, this doesn't mean I haven't thought about decorating-especially The Tree. Since I have a monkey for a son and A is a human vacuum cleaner, I decided I didn't want to deal with needles falling from branches, watering a tree, or watching a tree topple over several times. Fake trees are out too since I don't want to store one til next year so my options were rapidly decreasing. Then I remembered an idea L had-why not use a birch tree instead of a spruce? The more I think about it, the more it sounds kind of cute-I'm thinking white lights, red bead garland, and candy canes as the main decorations. No needle mess to clean up, no watering, and it can be secured directly to our floor so I won't be hearing Timber! several times a day. Best of all, we have an overabundance of birch on our land but spruce, pine, and other such Christmas tree varieties are far and few between. Yes, I think I'm going to enjoy my white Christmas tree this year. No guarantees next year's tree will be white though.