What time are we going to "worship" the tree?

So yesterday I got an email from one of my colleagues in the office, and she said that they would be decorating the office Wednesday at 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. if anyone wanted to join them. "Fun!" I thought to myself. "And another great way to get to know my colleagues!"

I confirmed with a friend early in the day that we'd start decorating at 12 p.m. and even arranged my meetings today around said decorating. (Can you tell that I LOVE Christmas?) 12 p.m. came and went, and there was no one in the meeting room working on decorations. *Sigh* I figured I must have misheard them. (Not the first time!)

Later in the afternoon, wondering if I had completely misunderstood today's activities, I went back to my friend and eagerly asked him the following question:

"A que hora vamos adorar el arbol de Navidad?" 

He looked back at me with a blank stare, and his colleague turned to me with a smile and reiterated "A las doce y a las cuatro." Ok. Great. I wasn't crazy. We were supposed to decorate the office for Christmas at noon and again at 4 p.m. Sign me up!

But when I walked back to my office, I realized that I had (in my eager-yet-still-developing Spanish) mixed up two very different words.  While I meant to ask Pablo - "What time are we going to decorate the Christmas tree?," what I actually asked him was "What time are we going to worship the Christmas tree?" Excellent.

Adorar = worship, adore (NOT "adorn")

Decorar = decorate

I told Brian later that even though I have to laugh at myself when I make these kind of mistakes, it's a great teaching tool because I never make the same mistake again! Poco a poco...

Eventually, we started decorating the tree in the office. We pulled Brian in because he was the only person tall enough to reach the top!

Feliz Navidad (Wait, we haven't even celebrated Thanksgiving yet!)

Brian and my compañera, Karin, pleased with themselves after wrapping the tree in lights.