The true meaning of Christmas is always much more evident on trash day than on Christmas day.

This morning I put out twice as much trash as I usually do, and I normally only put trash out every other week. It is amazing how much more trash gets generated.

I do have to admit, however, that a part of that trash is related to our house getting broken into and having to replace a door. But that only accounts for about half of one of the bags.

After our house was burglarized, we had basically written off our tree. The only time that my wife would have had to decorate it was on Friday evening, and since the tree was coated in glass there was no safe way that we were going to be able to bring it upstairs and decorate it. We had decided to leave it outside so that we would at least have the semblance of some sort of holiday spirit; maybe the cars driving by would have reflected off the bits of glass.

Yesterday, while cleaning up the glass from the basement, I decided that I could not stand to see my wife look so dissappointed. I spent about 3 hours on the tree with the safety goggles, some good gloves, a respirator and a shop vacuum. I started at the top and worked my way down, sucking down any leaves, bird feathers, and bits of glass that I could find. When I got to the bottom, I cleaned up what had been knocked to the floor. Then I worked my way back up. I probably traversed the tree at least 8 or 9 times. I doubt that I managed to find all of the glass in the tree, but I cleaned it up enough that I only saw one piece of glass in the last 2 or 3 times up and down the tree. At that point, I thought that the tree would be safe enough to bring upstairs and decorate.

We were a couple of days late, but we were able to use our christmas tree. I saved Christmas! My wife is very happy with me now.