Thanks for the pics of your tree. Libby and I haven't had one in a few years because we have been spending our Christmases up North in Chicago.
Putting up the tree (we always did a fake tree) was usually our get-in-the-Christmas spirit time... We'd listen to Christmas songs (Christmas parodies, actually) while I put up the tree and Libby shopped on Amazon. Ah... good times. Well, except the one year where we put up the tree on the 21st, never bothered to decorate it, and took it down on the 26th.
John