I'm Adely Mone, and this is the Slowdown.

Ever since I was a kid, I have loved putting up the Christmas tree.

My father and stepmother would make a whole day of it, and then because I was raised

in two households, I got to do it again.

Two trees, two Christmases, even then, I knew that was a kind of luck and not a hardship.

And now I am the first to want to put up the tree in my family, which is me, my husband,

the cat, and the dog.

I can't help it.

I love a Christmas tree.

I love getting it, hauling out the box of decorations that have traveled with me through

the years.

I have a small set of tiny netcrackers I bought at a Christmas fair in Frankfurt, Germany

when I was 17.

They are still in their original cardboard box with their original, serious faces.

I have a few ornaments from when I was a kid, and some I've gathered throughout our ten

years in Kentucky.

A few ornaments with pugs on them, because Glylybean, our pug, is clearly as important as any

angel on the top of the tree.

Because of the way our schedules work, I usually do most of this on my own now.

Lucas comes upstairs from work and I say, ta-da, and the tree is done.

Our cat, who is over 20 years old, always sits directly under the tree, as if I've done

the whole thing for her.

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