A real fake fake Christmas tree

This year, I wanted to do a book themed advent calendar.  I wanted to have a book wrapped for every day of the month of December, with an activity taped inside.  I have the books, however, I never got around to wrapping them.  I feel bad, my son's class must have been talking about advent calendars at school because he keeps asking me if he can open the window for 1 and see if there's chocolate inside.  For today, we read Moostletoe and decorated our tree.

Moostletoe couldn't have been more perfect for us for many reasons for Day 1.  First of all, when you live in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas, you don't get the luxury of buying a real tree or cutting down your own.  One of the first things people warn you about before you move to Japan is if you plan on spending Christmas here, you should bring a fake tree.  You can buy a fake one here, they are just quite expensive.  I am not a fake tree kind of person, there is just something so wrong with it to me.  This is our first year staying in Japan for Christmas and I had faith we would actually find a real tree, since last year I lucked out and our Costco had them.

Yesterday, I went to Costco with high hopes of getting a real tree, and this year I was even going to splurge for the real wreath.  Well, much to my dismay, they aren't getting real trees this year and the 2 foot tall ones at Ikea are sold out.  I still can't bring myself to buy a fake tree, so I came up with a better idea, if we are going to have a fake tree, why not have a real fake fake tree.

Can I just say "what can't you do with cardboard"?  My kids were worried that Santa wouldn't come if we had a cardboard tree, but I reassured him that he comes to all houses with children in them.  Do you know the last two years, one of my kids has knocked down my parent's tree completely to the ground, at least I don't have to worry about that this year.

Here it is in the light:

Christmas is all about the kids and this tree will be all about the kids, all the ornaments we put on it are going to be homemade.

It came out pretty good, don't you think? Oh and the Super Mario Brothers Star on the top sealed the deal for the two older boys.