When I was a kid, we had an artificial Christmas tree. (Artificial is a prettier word than fake.) We had the same tree for as many years as I can remember. In fact, my mom still has that tree.
In 2003 I got married. James' family always had fresh, live, real Christmas trees. They went to Casey's (a hardware store...confusing, right, Midwesterners?) or Safeway and bought a real tree every year. I thought real trees were a mess, a hassle.
Our first Christmas, we lived in a tiny apartment. There wasn't room for a tree. Someone gave us their old artificial tree and we just used the top of the tree as our tree. We went over to my parent's house and sorted out all of my ornaments and decorated our very first Christmas tree. It was pretty Charlie Brownie.
By the time our second Christmas came around, we had moved. Our apartment was above a store in downtown Oskaloosa. It was a long and skinny place, almost half a block long. We had several bay windows and 10-foot ceilings. It was a Christmas tree's dream! We borrowed my dad's truck, went out to a Christmas Tree Farm and cut down our very first tree. It was a big one, probably 8 feet tall. It was amazing! We had to buy extra lights and ornaments to fully decorate it. This tree has been remembered and pined after every Christmas since its existence.
The next year we lived with my parents and shared their tree. Actually, I'm not sure that we even put up a tree that year since my dad was sick.
For the first 3 years we lived in Lee's Summit we went to Santa's Tree Farm and cut down a tree. It was a pretty fun experience, especially once we had the boys with us.
The last three years we have hiked out to rugged Home Depot and pulled a tree out of their display. They are actually pretty good trees, and cheap! It's not quite as festive, but the result is the same.
Now that we've had several Christmases with live trees, I love them! It's fun to find a new tree and make it look nice every year. And the pine scent is delicious!
Pretend there's a picture of our tree here. Apparently we didn't take any this year.
And this post is late, in honor of the 12th day of Christmas!
James' editorial notes: The cool apartment in Oskaloosa [aka the High Ave Apartment] had 11' ceilings and the tree was probably 10' Also we do have a few [not so great] photos of our tree but I have failed to download them from my iPhone to the computer. Everything else is accurate as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteBoth Sam and I grew up with fakies, so we still go that route. Mostly because we can set up our tree on November 1st and have it still look great at New Years. :) Growing up, we had a fake tree, but my dad always went to the lot and bought the smallest, ugliest tree, then chopped it up for firewood. He'd throw a branch or log in the fireplace with the good, dry wood, and voila! Our house smelled like a fresh tree. Funny, huh?!
ReplyDelete