Monday, December 27, 2010

Tree Shopping

A few weeks ago, while Grandma Dee was still visiting, all of us including Flash, piled into the truck to go pick out our Christmas tree. Every year we go to The Gardener's parents' house and select a tree from somewhere in their 80 acre field. Of course these don't come pre-lit like the plastic and wire artificial set-ups, but I'll gladly take a messy, local, real tree over fake any year. Isn't that the tradition of the Christmas tree anyway? To bring the outdoors in? Plus, it's a fun excuse to get all bundled up and drive through the snowy fields in our truck, bouncing around with the 4 wheel drive engaged.

After much scrutiny, we chose this beauty.

Unlike Chevy Chase's character Clark in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, my husband remembered to bring along a saw.
The dogs were of little help.


After I strung the tree with lights (and in the process glued my fingers together with tree sap), the girls hung all of the ornaments. Some had to be repositioned after we found 4 or 5 ornaments hanging on a single branch. Part of me wanted to leave them there because it was so unique and a real work of art, I just didn't want any handmade ornaments to fall and be destroyed by a certain four legged shredding machine.

6 comments:

LL Cool Joe said...

Nothing like having a real Christmas tree, but we don't have the luxury of driving off into the woods to get one so the grotty fake one comes out year after year.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Secret Mom Thoughts said...

We always get a real tree too. I love the smell of them. Great shots.

Riot Kitty said...

Cute pics! The dogs are particularly adorable.

Oddly enough, the kitties had no interest in eating our wrapping paper this year. They're jaded, I guess ;)

Sidhe said...

I just love, love, love real trees (though the fake, pre-lit ones do have an advantage in convenience).

Shady Lady said...

LK won't do a real tree. :( I tried. It seems he's just a softy...he just won't kill a tree. We have a really awesome fake one, though! And it was made in the USA. That's about the best I can do.

sheila said...

Beautiful shots!!!!!!!!!!! I love the black and whites at the end~ oh, and the family shot is pretty good too! What a fun time, I remember doing this when I was a kid but alas, we now have a pre-lit. Assembled and ready to go in about 3 minutes. lol.