Have we finally gone too far with this tree?

That is the very question we were asking ourselves today as we watched three guys, one of them quite big, load this year's Christmas tree atop the van.  (As we were buying it, one of them had asked us if it was a tree for a church or a private residence.) 

Click on an image to see a larger version.

The view from the front was even more unsettling.

Yes, we made the roughly three-mile drive home very, very slowly, with Scott following us in his car and both of us using our flashers to warn other drivers of our slow progress. 

Cutting the tree free and rolling it down the side of the van was not hard; I was able to manage that part by myself.

Pulling it into the front hall, though, was a trying task that gave me more motivation to get back to the gym and that involved four of us, with me alone on the heavy end.  Here we are on a break, with Scott cheering our progress so far and Sarah smiling a grin of terror at the work still to come.

Note to self:  I hate how fat and weak I've let myself become.  I definitely must fix that.

Amazingly, thanks to good planning and having five of us helping lift the beast, the rest of the setting-up process went more smoothly than in any year in recent memory.

Scott in shoes is about six feet tall, so this picture should give you a better sense of the size of the tree.

It's a very good thing that we own a lot of lights and ornaments.