R.I.P. Tree

::NOTE:: The furry menace has been vanquished. The full containment traps garnered nothing, but the snap traps caught the culprit on the very first night. This was nearly a month ago, and there has been no mousey trouble since. So far, so good; and we have spare snap traps at the ready in case the situation changes again.

My parents separated 15 years ago this Christmas. The following year, my father bought a 3' tall tabletop tree for his apartment. He soon bought a townhome and furnished it for the holidays with a normal-sized tree, and bequeathed the 3' tree to me for use in my apartment and thenceforth.

In 2003, I moved in with Husband. The arrangement of our furniture in the living room pretty much prevented getting a real (or real-sized) tree, so we put my tabletop tree on top of the L-shaped entertainment center. It wasn't elegant, but it sufficed, and there was some rednecky charm to my stumpy fake tree balanced precariously on top of the DVD player.

Last year, even as I put it back up, I acknowledged that my little tree was not long for this world. The needles were falling out, one of the feet wouldn't slide properly into the base, and the branches were getting a bit wonky from the years of folding and unfolding.

This year, the sales were too good to ignore. I bit the bullet and bought a 6' pre-lighted tree. We'll have to rearrange the couches, but it'll only be for a month, which I think we can handle. Besides, with the advent of the new TV and thus the new entertainment center, there was no place to put Stump but on the floor, which I'm sure Pocket would love, but it would not bode well for our ornaments and such.

My tabletop tree gave 14 holidays of good service, but as all things must come to an end, so did the little tree go to the curb this morning.

Rest in peace, little tree. Deep in my heart, I'll probably miss you.