Oh Christmas Tree

My family has a habit, a weird coincidence really - drama happens more frequently around the holidays in our home than at any other time of the year. Or, maybe it just feels that way because life around the holidays seems so much more hectic. To paraphrase, my Dad was hospitalized last week. He is home and on the mend now, but Dad being in the hospital left certain essential tasks flapping helplessly in the freezing breeze.

Enter the Christmas Tree Challenge. Eric stepped forward and offered to help which was great because Dad's Sweet Pickles Van has died and the newest vehicle he acquired hasn't been given an inspection sticker yet. Or an inspection to go with the sticker. Eric's helpfulness combined with his strength and his sweet El Camino (the car that thinks it's a truck) made him the perfect fit for the task.

So, on Saturday, Eric, his son Kiki and I headed out to West Newbury to find a Christmas tree and chop it out of nature to bring it home, decorate it and let it dry out and die before kicking it to the curb (funny how even when I think of it that way I still don't feel an ounce of guilt. Oh, how I love Christmas!)

We headed to the tree farm I'd found online to find it to be a tree farm suitable only for the residents of Munchkinland. I told the owner I needed a big tree. "Like, how big?" he asked from underneath his dirty Santa hat. I told him nine to ten feet. "Not a chance" he grumbled at me, then went on to tell me I wouldn't find any here of that size, or any of that size at any or the area farms.

I found this unlikely considering we come to this area of the state every year for our tree. Dad had recommended we check around the perimeter of the farm and Eric took this to heart, "Your dad said they could be around the perimeter, so we'll check the perimeter!". And so we did. We checked checked every inch of the Munchkinland farm and found only more Munchkinland trees.

We went on the the next farm, my anxiety increasing. We pulled into the next tree farm and asked the owner, standing there in the middle of an empty field, if he might have what we were looking for. He said he was sure we could find what we wanted here.

So, we trekked across the field and into the woods into the Shrek tree farm. All of the trees towered above us. The owner had told us that we were welcome to cut the tree higher up and we would be only charged for the top, but the trees were so tall it was difficult to determine if the top part would even work.

"I'm having fun!" Eric said in earnest, his seven year old son patiently in tow occasionally saying things like "Where's the saw?" and "I wanna cut something down!"  Eric went on to tell me he could tell I was stressed but that he was fine. I appreciated that because tree-choosing was a serious matter to me and I didn't want to come home with a lame-o tree.

After wandering for a while and wringing my hands for longer, I spotted one and said "That one!"

And down it came and home it went.

Down she goes!

Loading her up!

She hung over the edge a bit.

The real way to bring home a tree!