The Story Behind the 10.5 ft Tree

Everyone knows I love a great deal, which means my 2 favorite shopping days of the year are Black Friday and the day after Christmas! It is a rare occasion when I am willing to pay full-price for Christmas décor.  Every year my mom and I get up at the crack of dawn the day after Christmas and shop until about noon, which is right around when things start to get busy.

Anyways, this year I decided to do a little research before hand.  I have had my eye of the 10.5 ft Christmas tree at Target since the season began, you know the HUGE one in the center of all the Christmas décor.  You know the $500 one! Why 10.5 ft? Well, the 7.5 ft tree was soo teeny tiny in our living room, with the 12 ft. ceilings and the huge front window. I wanted a bigger tree, but without the big price tag ($500).  The 30% off markdown before Christmas was still not a deal for me. It would find one 50% off or less, or I was not interested. 

So, I started to call local Targets in Rochester on Christmas Eve morning, so that I could create my plan of attack on the morning of December 26th.  I called 4 Targets, asking about the 10.5 ft Christmas tree, and received the same response “there is only one, it is the display, there is no box and all of the ornaments come with it.”

WHAT?!?

Remember we are in NY, which means we need to transport the tree 4.5 hours to PA, with no box? And ALL the ornaments? YIKES!

The 4th store was the lucky store, I decided that, that display tree would be ours after negotiating a 30% plus an additional 30% off because it was the display and another 5% off with our Target Red Card.

I called my dad, who was less than pleased (he was having 20+ people to his house in about 5 hours) because he had a nice big truck to help transport the tree that was NOT in a box!  My mom came with me to check out the tree before the disassembling took place.  It was still perfect and I was soo excited to grab such a deal!

I called for store manager Joe, and he called for a 5 person Target team member clan to help with the process, it was no easy task and create quite a scene, as you can only imagine.

People were staring, ornaments were flying, and the sweat was dripping.

 

There was a total of 8 wrapping paper boxes full of ornaments!  Thankfully they are all unbreakable!  If anyone is in need of some ornaments for next year, I got you covered.  The Target team worked hard, they were patient and super friendly.  I am sure this is just the thing they wanted to do on Christmas Eve day.

 

There was a train of 3 shopping carts and 2 flat beds up to the register.  My mom was on a mission to find the biggest tree bags they sold. (she found them, we needed 2!)  Then, two male team members helped my dad hoist the tree into the truck.  I said my “Thank Yous” 100x’s during this entire process.  It was such a high to get this beautiful tree for a little over $200 including tax! 

Merry Christmas to Me!!

PS..Greg & I brought the tree home and put it together to make sure that everything worked and survived the move, it looked perfect in our living room!

Before (7.5 ft tree)

After (10.5 ft tree)