There's no question that this time of year gets me feeling down in the dumps (would it be possible for me to hibernate until April???) and this year I've been feeling rather bah humbug about the holidays. The inevitable holiday stress combined with the commercialism of the whole deal (and malls packed with stupid people) does not exactly get me in the Christmas spirit.
Another thing that really gets my dander up about Christmas? Spending $80+ on a DEAD TREE from a sketchy Christmas tree lot. Last year we went to a local nursery to buy our tree and laid rubber in the parking lot as soon as we discovered all their Christmas trees were a hundred bucks and up. Wha...?! We then drove around in desperation (it was mid-December and COLD) and finally bought an $80 tree from the Boy Scouts. It pained me to hand over that kind of cash for something we'd be throwing out in a few weeks (ok, or months...yeah, I'm the weirdo who sometimes ends up leaving my tree up until February...I'm lazy). And after last year's experience, I quickly added Buy a Christmas tree from a farm to my Life List.
Despite my Scrooge-like tirade above - I LOVE Christmas trees and have since I was a child. Exhibit A (Christmas 1979):
Crap! Can't find the picture - I think it's at my mother's house. Anyway, just imagine a chubby cheeked 12-month old ripping ornaments off a Christmas tree.
So I was hoping a tree and some lights would get me out of my funk this year. On Sunday we decided to head to Ticonderoga Farms and get our tree straight from the source.
Neither Larry nor I were really interested in chopping down our own tree (manual labor in the cold - no thanks - did I mention we're lazy?) and we hoped to pick out a pre-cut tree that someone else had chopped down from the farm. I was hoping to find a misfit Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year - I didn't want a perfectly cone-shaped tree - I wanted something with more personality...and a little rustic looking. However, the only precut trees they had were gigantic, expensive, imported Fraser Firs. So we headed out with saw in hand to chop down our own...
Nope, not this one.
Pretty soon, we found the perfect tree...
Larry put the kibosh on that, so we settled on this Scotch Pine. It was barrel shaped with a few bare spots and I loved it. I thought I would feel bad about chopping down a tree, but nope, the whole process was totally fun.
Tiiiiiiimberrrrr!
MAN CHOP DOWN TREE. ROAR!
MAN CARRY TREE OUT OF FOREST.
It was brutally cold with frigid wind - but I had a great time...and chopping down the tree only took a few seconds - it wasn't hard work at all (especially since Larry did all of the sawing). Slightly barbaric, yes, but when I asked Larry if he had fun, he replied "I like to chop things down!!!"
Cutting down our own tree was seriously the most fun and Christmasy thing I've done in years and I definitely think this will be a new tradition for us. #189 off the Life List: check!
And also...the tree cost under fifty bucks!
P.S. Anyone know how to get tree sap off a camera???
2 comments:
I LOVE your Life List adventures!
Larry was very nice to carry the tree. Next time you should harness up Banjo and Gravy and have them pull it out, LOL! :) I used to do that with my dogs- good exercise, tires 'em out- ah, good times. ;o)
Jen
Thanks, Jen! I would love to bring the dogs, but I think they'd be much more interested in peeing on the trees than pulling them! Also, we'd first have to get a vehicle big enough to hold a tree AND two dogs!
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