Our Christmas Tree!

We had 4 days off work for Thanksgiving (I love being a teacher!), so on Friday we took off for China to do some Christmas shopping. We were in search of a fake tree, our rationale being that those sorts of things all seem to be made in China (and therefore must be cheap there too, right?). Well, thanks to some handwritten Chinese directions (courtesy of our kind Chinese co-workers at school), we were able to find a "wholesale" mall in Shenzhen, China. The mall was all decked out for Christmas, with fake reindeer on the sidewalk, blinking lights in the doorways, and forests of fake Christmas trees set up in the parking lot. Emily commented that the process of tree selection felt a lot like a visit to a tree lot in the US (except these trees smelled a bit like Benzene). After much serious conversation (and comments like "this one looks a bit thin," and "that one's too short," and "the fumes from this one are making me dizzy), we finally decided on a 7 foot beauty. We bought it a little too early in the day and I (Brad) wound up carrying it around Shenzhen for another 2 hours. However, we were also able to find Christmas ornaments and several strings of lights (that we are praying won't burn our house down).

So, as you can see from the picture, our home looks very festive now! Thanks to Ruthie for helping us decorate the tree!

My question (feel free to leave a comment): How much do you think we paid for our fake Chinese Christmas tree?