The Lineup
We got our tree yesterday. Pretty much right on schedule. We usually target the weekend after Thanksgiving to get a tree and put it up. Everyday this past week, it seemed, someone was waving a cell at me and asking if I wanted to see their tree. Based on this unscientific theory, it seems a lot of trees go up once the turkey is cleared. I asked a friend at work where they got their tree and she told me, "It's been a tradition of ours to cut our own at a Christmas tree farm." She said she's been going to the same farm in Dayton since she was a little kid, and now she still lugs her family there. If I was getting our trees at the same place I did as a kid, I'd be in jail every December. This I truly believe. You see each December my Dad would throw my brother, me and a good, sharp crosscut saw into the station wagon and head off to Cumberland. He said he had a friend out there who told him we could cut any trees on his property. I didn't believe him, based on Dad's seemingly clandestine approach he had in his eye, as we scouted out mile after mile of woods and fields. All of a sudden he'd brake, pull over onto a gravel pull-off and exclaim, "There it is!" After about 20 minutes of trudging here and there, the deed was done. The imperfect tree got attached to the roof, and we were off. I'd like to say this is how we got our tree in the wilds of Maine yesterday, but that would be an untruth. We bought our Fraser for $35, where we've bought our tree for the last 5 years or so.
We've had good luck there. Last New Years, the tree was still going strong with not a real loss of needles, and with a woodstove cranking most of the month, a drying tree can be a real issue.
So, you have good luck?
Creatures of habit always return to the well; we did.
It sits this morning in the family room loaded with decorations and memories from past Decembers.
Perfect!
Mine is artificial so I just open the box and there it is.
ReplyDelete:-) Traditionally our tree only goes up a couple of days before Christmas Eve. Very traditionally, when I was a child, it only went up on Christmas Eve. That was traditional German, nowadays I guess a lot of people have it before even in Germany.
ReplyDeleteLove your childhood memories of getting the holiday tree from a friend. We have evolved from getting up to see the trimmed tree as a child to putting up our own Christmas tree on Christmas eve for our own children, to putting up the tree a few days before Christmas. Then we got a tall artificial tree , and then a table top tree. This year I left the decorated table top in our walk-up attic and bought an even smaller, flocked table top artificial tree. After seeing it for several days I transferred it to a different location to make room for the tree that is stashed in the attic. It now brightens up our living room. I'm not ready to give it up. . .yet. Perhaps I'll just get a tall flocked REAL tree for a change?
ReplyDeleteI have bad allergies so we use artificial trees. My dad was a Forest Ranger when I was little so we just cut our own tree on the National Forest (he sold himself a permit to do so).
ReplyDeleteI would love to have a real tree again but I live with kitty Schwarzenegger and her mission, take that tree down.
ReplyDeleteI buy my tree at same place since 20 years: on the Promenade, along the beach, in front of the sea. That's where the sellers are , as there's a lot of place there to put all trees. Did you already buy a Xmas tree in front of Blue Mediterranean sea?.. very special, indeed!
ReplyDeleteA lovely post of memories, Birdman. Mine is artificial!
ReplyDeleteGood job on the tree, Birdman! Haven't gotten one yet.
ReplyDeleteYor custum are different from ours. We seldom put up our trees until one or two days before Christmas.
ReplyDeleteUse to go out to the tree farm and cut our own, but now I got to the basement bring up the artificial tree in the cardboard box. Not as traditional, but it allows up to get out our ornament without having to put up with problems of a real tree. Fine story and photo.
ReplyDeleteImagine the days when real lighted candles decorated a tree. It's a wonder more houses didn't burn to the ground. Your tree tradition sounds like something out of a Currier and Ives illustration.
ReplyDeleteI popped mine out of the spooky closet under the staircase. Bless my daughter for putting the thing together.
ReplyDeleteMy father and I used to go looking for a tree from the greasy, suspicious guys under the West Side Highway (before it collapsed) on December 24, about the time my mother started getting hysterical. Since our kids left home we don't bother. We'd rather have one another.
ReplyDeleteNo tree yet. However, there is a wreath on the door, carolers on the mantel, the Nativity scene is up, and kissing balls in the archways. Lights in the windows tonight, possibly. Tree . . . maybe this weekend? Maybe when Christian comes home from college? Something about having a "kid" helping to decorate the tree . . .
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