Oh Christmas Tree!

My kids and I have always wanted to go up to the mountains to cut down our own Christmas tree but living in Los Angeles made it impractical.  Truthfully, the past fourteen years have rendered only artificial trees in our house because it was just too difficult for me to go out and get a tree at a lot then bring it home tied to our car and have to carry it inside.  The first year I was divorced I tried to do it but I only got as far as getting the tree off of the car.  I couldn’t pick it up and carry it inside so it stayed outside until we could get my friend’s husband to come carry it inside the house for us the next day. 

Two years ago I moved away from Los Angeles and we now are near places where we can get a freshly cut tree.  The first two Christmases, however, it was only my youngest daughter and myself here until Christmas Eve so we just put up the artificial tree.  This year, my older children are in the same area that I live in so on Saturday we all drove to the mountains behind Sebastopol to cut down a tree.  We went on the spur of the moment.  We hadn’t planned it.  We just decided to do it at the last minute and with only 25 minutes til sundown when the Christmas tree farm closed, we crossed our fingers we would make it on time.  We took two vehicles.  My son and his girlfriend drove her truck to carry the tree home in and my girls and I went in my car to help pick it out.

We arrived with very little light left.  The woman said if we could find a tree with such poor lighting we were welcome to try.  So off we went down the hill to find a tree.  We found a lot of tiny trees, which would have been just fine in my book, but my youngest daughter kept shaking her head and pointing first to one tree then another.  With the light diminishing by the second, we really had to hurry.  She picked out a tree that had to be at least nine feet tall.  No way!  I sent her to look for another.  Soon she found one that we figured was about eight feet tall so that would work.  As quickly as he possibly could, my son cut the tree trunk and carried the tree to the truck while I paid for the white fir tree. 

When we arrived home, my son carried the tree inside only to find that we had misjudged the height of the tree and it would not fit standing up in the front window of our living room, or in any other room.  So off came about ten inches from the top!  Once inside, we realized that the tree was way, way bigger than we had imagined.  It is about seven and a half feet wide from the tip of one branch to the tip of the branch on the opposite side.  It takes up the entire window and about a third of the living room!  But it is a beautiful tree!  And we picked ourselves and cut it down ourselves!

Now, two days later, the tree is still sitting unadorned in the front window.  Everyone has now lost interest in the tree.  I am not able to get on my hands and knees to put the lights on, due to a back injury, and no one else will do it.  So the tree sits in the living room waiting to be decorated. Poor Christmas tree.  It looks so lonely sitting there undressed!