Shane and I embarked on our third annual Christmas tree hunt yesterday. We stayed true to tradition and went to the same tree farm out in the North Bend that we’ve enjoyed so much the past two years. We bundled up, grabbed a saw, and spent nearly an hour wandering around the farm, in search of that perfect tree. After examining all of the possibilities and asking each other, “Is that one too tall? Too short? Is it full enough? Too full? Are all of these starting to look the same to you?”, we settled on a 7-foot tall Douglas Fir. Shane hacked it down with a few swift strokes of the saw, we paid our bill (while helping ourselves to some complimentary apple cider – mmm…), and the tree was ours. The next task at hand was getting this thing home – in previous years, we’ve put down the back seats of our Civic and jammed our poor little tree inside the car. This year, we were bold enough to strap it to the roof of our Honda Civic, despite the fact we don’t have a roof rack. Twenty minutes later, we had it all tied up, but since neither one of us have our knot-tying badges, we were a little anxious about just how secure the tree actually was. The parking lot attendant’s last words to us as we left were, “You’ll be ok, if you don’t drive fast.” Ummm… we had thirty miles of freeway separating us from our house. To the chagrin of all the other cars on I-90, we drove 50 mph the whole way home. But we made it, with tree still in tow.
Then came the fun of stringing lights and decorating the tree. My mom and dad have been giving me a Christmas ornament every year since I was a kid, so opening up the ornament box unlocks all sorts of fond memories. It’s fun to think that I have been unwrapping and hanging some of these same ornaments for over 20 years. I will sacrifice a perfectly decorated, color-coordinated tree any day for a tree with meaning. And all of of my varied little angels, and glass kittens, and plastic snowflakes are quite lovely, actually…
