How lovely are thy branches

Shelled out $40-something to the Lion's Club for this year's tree only to have it stand nearly naked in the dining room until the last few days before Christmas.
With the oldest daughter off in her first year of college, the second-born, our son, decreed that we would wait for her to return home to decorate.
This did not sit well with the youngest, who, every day since the tree came into the house after Thanksgiving, has been asking, "When can we decorate the tree?"
Being the wise mother of four that I am, I thought I struck a fair deal that would keep everyone happy — put up just a few. How smug, though, of me to actually think this would fly.
Walking by the tree when he got home that evening, the son stopped, whirled around, and demanded to know what was going on. Yanking the ornaments off the branches, he reprimanded me:
"We HAAAVE to wait. This IS a family tradition. The WHOLE family has to be here."
I mumbled something about compromise and skulked off to the kitchen, hoping no one else would notice the tree had been returned to its naked splendor.
Of course, when the daughter arrived home, the husband was gone on a business trip. By the time everyone reconvened and was in the house, together, at a reasonable hour, all holiday, school and work commitments satisfied, we were six days out from Christmas.
Considering that I like to have the tree out on the boulevard waiting for garbage pickup on the 26th, the tree price formula of dollar-per-day-of-enjoyment was rising at a steep rate.
The thought actually ran through my mind that maybe we could skip the tree part and let the ornaments lay in full display on the dining room table as they had for the past two weeks. No muss, no fuss and save 40 bucks.
Meanwhile, a battle started to rage.
"Hey, where's my ornament from last year?"
"That's mine!"
"No, you idiot, this is yours!"
"Nuh uh. It is not! It's mine. This one is yours."
"Shut up, you guys."
"No, you shut up."
"Mooooooom!"
Trip to the tree lot — $2
Tree — $40
Family tradition — priceless