O Christmas Tree

For the past 10 years, we've had an artificial tree. This year, I got it in my head that I wanted a real tree. Afterall, we live in the Evergreen State, for Pete's sake! And we live near all these beautiful Christmas tree farms - how can we not support the local farmers? It's not all about the berry farmers, ya know... Well, almost. But not quite.

When I was a little girl, I have very distinct memories of going to the local florist with my Mom and picking up our flocked Christmas tree. Remember those? A real tree, but sprayed with white stuff to make it look like snow. It was the 70s. Need I say more?

Then when I was in jr high and high school I remember our outings to the mountains to go pick a tree. I also remember crashing my Dad's snowmobile into a tree after I sort of went over a little cliff. I was supposed to be staying with him and got a little carried away. Oops. But he forgave me and we still found a great tree. Which is not as easy as you might think when you're in a great big forest. It's always interesting to look for a tree in the forest - you think you find the perfect tree from a distance and when you get up close you discover it's really 2 trees. Or you think you find the perfect size tree in the middle of the zillion other trees only to discover that it's actually 14 feet tall and won't fit in your house with 8 feet ceilings.

But as we discovered this year, it's easy to find a perfect tree at a Christmas tree farm. Just look at our options...

As we scouted for the perfect tree, Henry had to try the saw on a stump. Just to make sure it worked. We searched and searched, and then we found it. A beautiful 7 1/2 foot Douglas Fir. I love this tree! And the 3 people standing in front of it too...

Let the cutting begin!

Henry took a turn with the saw. But he let Dan finish off the job. It was a lot of work!
Then we loaded it up and took it home. Yippee. I'm ready to decorate.