Deck the halls, or not.

I finally decided yesterday not to have a Christmas tree.  It will be our first year without one since our son was a baby.  In recent years, I'd finally make up my mind to have a tree a couple of weeks before Christmas, and we'd drive to our favorite Christmas tree farm and cut one down.  The day after Christmas, I'd take off the ornaments and drag the tree to the yard, leaving the carpet strewn with pine needles.  (I've always hated artificial trees.) 
That's a lot of mess for just a couple of weeks.  We don't do gifts any more, so there are never any packages to put under the tree.  
I have a little tree about two feet tall that plugs in and lights up; I brought that in the other day.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a short in its wiring, so the lights don't always work.  When Christmas is over, I'll find a similar marked-down tree to use in future years... not the kind you have to assemble, but something I can just take out of the box and plug in each year.  
I brought in our Christmas coffee mugs and hung a few of the Avon Christmas plates.  That's about as much "decking the halls" as I'll be doing.  
I don't even feel sad about not having a real tree; I'll miss going through the ornaments, remembering how and where I got them, recalling which grandchild made this or that trinket for the tree.  But the time has come in this household to stop with the Christmas tree tradition.  
Dave Ramsey doesn't suggest an envelope for buying a Christmas tree anyhow; last year we let the dog and cow pay for it, since the "pet" envelope had more money than any of the others.  Normally all that comes out of the envelope is dog food, Iris' heartworm preventative, and sweet feed and an occasional salt block for the cow.  The recent dehorning of Jody depleted those funds quite a bit, but that seems to be the only envelope that never goes empty.  That, and the clothes one, although it took a big hit last week when we purchased a new watch for Cliff; we lost his old one when we were at our son's house in Georgia.  They found it after we left, but it had moisture in it anyhow; it was time for a new one. 
Speaking of the cow (was I?), Bonnie should have come in heat by now, but we've seen no signs.  Normally she'd have been pregnant by this time.  I don't mind if we're late getting her bred, but I do hope she isn't going to be infertile from here on out; I'm not ready to get rid of her yet.  One thing about it, we have Jody for a replacement if that should happen; she'll be old enough to breed in another six months.  
Back on the subject of the Damn Dave Ramsey envelopes:  We do have one marked "Misc." that could be used for Christmas trees and such, but would you believe it's usually one of the first ones to go empty each month?  Yeah, when you have money you can use for anything you want, it doesn't take long to use it.  I think I need to just do away with that one and distribute those funds throughout the other envelopes.