As today was my first anniversary of living in my Colorado Rocky Mountain home...
I decided to put up my Christmas Tree early to celebrate.
And today...
we had the largest and most active thunderstorm I had ever seen here.
In celebration for my first anniversary here...
my sisters and their extended families and I had a video chat
with the Christmas Tree in view on my video feed.
It was originally scheduled for a little later...
but with the highly active lightning...
I called my elder sister to move it up since I was afraid that
I might lose the internet connection during the storm
(it turned out that everything worked fine throughout the storm).
The above videos were taken after I had finally put the tree together...
and most importantly...
after I had removed the artificial snow from each light.
OMG!!!
There are 900 individual lights on this 9' tree...
and over 2,000 individual twigs which bifurcate from the branches...
each of which had to be bent into shape to provide a natural look to the tree.
I had to clean EACH light by not only scraping each one with my fingernails...
but I then had to dig into the ends of each light with a knife blade to remove the
artificial snow they had blown on the tree while the lights were already attached
(each light had a deep indentation on the end).
It had taken me about 30 seconds for each light at first...
but with practice...
I got it down to 10-15 seconds each.
On top of that...
as each light had a thick layer of blown artificial snow on them...
I couldn't tell by sight alone.
I had to feel each of the almost 2,100 twigs to tell them apart.
I had started in the morning...
and I hadn't finished until after 7 PM.
Putting the tree together and arranging the twigs should take about one hour...
and gladly...
I only had to scrape clear each light this once...
and never again.
There were four major parts to the tree.
I had to bend each branch down into place...
hunt for the lights and clean each one...
and then arrange each twig on each branch.
The Aspen leaves are starting to turn colors already.
As you can see...
most all of the pine needles could have actually been a light...
so I had to go by feel down each twig.
Here is one of the lights that I had to clean.
After scraping down and around the base of each light with my thumbnail...
...I then had to use a knife blade on each end to scrape out the artificial snow.
Here is one of the cleaned lights.
I then splayed each twig to make the tree look natural.
I had finally finished the first stage.
I then inserted the second stage and began the whole process once again.
For the first stage...
I just sat on the floor as I worked.
For the second stage...
I just sat on a rung of a step ladder as I worked.
After a while...
dark clouds began moving in.
Another example of how heavily flocked each twig was.
I found this light by touch...
and then cleaned it off.
The second stage was completed.
For the third stage...
I ended up using my extendable ladder to sit and stand upon as I worked.
Just as I had completed the third stage...
it had begun to hail.
Before I began the fourth stage...
I took a frozen pizza break.
For the fourth and final stage...
I decided I would open it up...
clean the lights...
and arrange the twigs while sitting in my recliner.
My back was very sore at this point.
Finally finished...
...and installed.
I hooked up the wiring and lit up the tree.
Man...
I was happy.
I was in no mood to have to hunt down any shorts in the wiring!
Luckily...
everything worked out.
It has a multi light capability in various combinations as manipulated
by a remote control unit.
For the time being...
I just left it in the clear light mode.
I then fooled around with the remote to see the different modes available.
So...
was it worth it?
YES...
I love this Christmas Tree.
In the future...
it should take me about one hour to fully install...
and not the ten hours it took me this time.
I also ordered more ornaments...
a tree topper...
and a tree skirt.
---------
Thinking I would finish up the tree early...
I was planning on eating at an all you can eat sushi place
in Colorado Springs to celebrate.
Then...
the large thunderstorm moved in.
And so...
I am planning on having my celebratory dinner tomorrow.
----------------
Now that I have lived here for one year...
and have experienced each season...
I can honestly say that I have loved every moment here.
I had always dreamt of one day living in a high altitude
(9,650 feet in elevation here)...
mountain chalet.
It has been even better than I had imagined.
It is my mountain temple...
far away from the insanity of today's world.
Living here...
I get a constant feeling of...
absolute freedom in solitude...
blissful serenity...
being massaged by the fresh and crisp mountain breezes...
and all the while...
feeling one with nature.
Am I going to live here the rest of my life?
I am going to die here...
filled with peace and serenity.
I so love it here.
Each season has its own distinct flavor...
and so...
I can say that living here has been...
nothing short of...
absolutely delicious.
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