Day 71: The Douglas Family Christmas Tree

December 5, 2010

Today was the big day to go get our Christmas tree. There are tons of u-cut farms around here, which is what my family always did in Michigan. Little did I know until today that this would be Fraser's first time cutting his own tree. 

We headed out and turned into the first place we came to (something with a "z" in the name; the flyer's in the car). A man met us with a saw and gave us the low down.We started bushwacking through the trees. Jacob loved going between the branches, occasionally falling down onto the muddy ground. Beautiful trees surrounded us; we could've picked the first one we saw. I told Fraser looking around longer was all part of the experience, though. He saw one that must've been 15ft. tall. He wanted it. I said I thought that one was a little much even if we DO have high ceilings. After a while of looking, discovering puffballs (I love stomping on those things!), and discussing how tall a tree we should get, we settled on a beautiful on that turned out to be 10 1/2 ft. tall. 

Jacob crouched down to watch the cutting of the tree. I remember loving that too when I was younger; getting all cozy under the tree, each of us kids trying to be the one the tree fell on. Good times. 

Fraser dragged the beast to the road. 

We were definitely feeling a bit National Lampoonish as we tied the tree to our tiny Honda Civic. Great thing about cutting your own tree, also, is it's cheap! Out here, anyway. Thirty bucks for a beautiful 10.5 foot Douglas Fir. Amazing. Sorry, Colorado, but you're paying for the shipping on these suckers.


We drove home very slowly! Lucky thing about living in suburbia is that we were only about a mile from our house, just little windy two-lane roads. Easy. This was the fun part. 

Our old tree stand was no way big enough to hold this tree. Plus, we needed more lights. I'd been to Target the night before and all their long LED strands of lights were sold out. Silly me for only buying one strand earlier in the week. Home Depot it was, then. Nothing. No tree stands left, no lights. It was like this was Christmas Eve and we were late in the game. Apparently early December is late in the game! Ace Hardware. Found a Swivel Straight, plastic stand. Fifty bucks. All of a sudden this cheap tree was no longer cheap. Lights - forty bucks. We skipped those. Fred Meyer as a last resort. Nothing. 

Back home only to discover that the tree stump is still much larger than the stand's hole and the directions are for a different stand- the Swivel Straight Plus. Riiiight. Thank you, China. Thankfully, it was not difficult to figure out how to actually put it together. What was more challenging was narrowing our tree stump. We had a miter saw and a hack saw. Neither good options. We borrowed the neighbour's saw but it was still slow going. Finally, Fraser found our axe out in a box in the shed. Thank god. We lugged it in together and put it in the stand. Much harder than doing so with a 7ft. tree. And swiveling... yea, right. Not really that helpful. Wouldn't recommend it. Just give me the ol' reliable metal stand. But, the tree is up. So. Hallelujah. 

Jacob got up from his nap, saw the tree and let out a "whoooa" followed by a big grin and a squeal. "Lights on dere," he said. Yep, we put some lights on (also challenging; Fraser balancing our huge outdoor ladder against the slanted ceiling while telling me to trust physics all so he could actually reach over the tree to put the lights on). And it smelled wonderful. I love fresh cut evergreen smell. 


Overall, I think it's worth the effort to have the big tree. Even for the novelty of it. And it sure looks great. 

We attempted to get a family picture for our Christmas cards out at the tree farm. We had a great one: everyone looking, smiling, happy. Only problem, the damn camera's auto focus was focusing on the TREES!!!! Alas, I'll leave you with it since it will not be appearing on a card.