Folks, it’s that time of the year: putting up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. I didn’t stray far from the tradition I set myself last year—my first holidays in my condo—by pulling out all of the Christmas decor even before having turkey on Thursday.

This had been on the calendar for well over a month, and Josh was on board for helping. Well, I really did need his help to bring the 7.5 foot tree up from my basement. I’m using all of my decorations from last year, but I did buy one new thing from the dollar section at Target and my mom gave me a few things, too.

I made a time-lapse video of Josh and I setting up the tree and added “after” clips of the decorations. Nothing fancy, but I thought it would be a fun project to make.

We did have a quick panic moment when setting up the tree: we put the base in and plugged it into the wall. All of the lights turned on. Then we put the middle piece in and plugged that into the base, and nothing. I was like, no, this can’t be happening, I can’t go buy a new tree. Josh started looking for the one light that was out, and I was looking at the instructions how to replace a bulb. But then I looked at the base again and saw that the two light strands on that piece weren’t plugged together, almost like it came apart. Then I felt like Clark Griswold when Ellen finally flips the switch in the garage and the whole tree lit up. Crisis averted.

And drum roll… the tree!

It took about an hour and a half to get everything set up and bring the fall decorations and empty boxes down to the basement. Now I know why my mom only puts a few things out now during the holidays; it’s a lot of work. But I’m really happy with how everything came out.

For dinner, we made our own pepperoni pizza with small Caesar salads, and for enjoying the decorations after, I made us rum and egg nog, again, eyeballing the rum by using a shot glass to measure it out.

I don’t care that I put up the decorations early. I need to feel something when it’s pitch black at 5:00 p.m. Leave me alone. Let me have my joy.