A live tree for Christmas
This year we decided to get a live tree for Christmas. We have always used our Charlie Brown style fake tree, but not this year. This year we are going all the way, baby! Join me now, friends, on this journey into the difficult task of perpetuating holiday traditions...
Behold: Eddies Christmas Tree Farm, right outside of Columbia, MS. Looks like good hunting today!
Mmmm. Them's fine trees. Fine. Nicely shaped, aeromatic, spray-painted evenly.
This is the one! Full. Fragrant. Firry.
Get Busy
After double-checking the height (and the price) I went right to work severing the leafy part from it's root-bound appendage.
Success!
Free from it's land-bound life, our tree is pulled in the wagon by Ian to the tree-netting shed.
Ian is strong (3 years old).
That is Eddie in the back. He owns the tree farm. A rather loud fellow, he was constantly pre-occupied with the safety of the children who were scampering about. What seemed to be simple tree-farm items are apparently hand-crushing, finger-cutting, arm-bludgening torture devices when the kids get within three feet.
As the children look on, the tree is shaken to remove loose/dead needles and whatnot. That is Eddie's wife, I believe her name was Mae. Eddie would yell at her "You're shakin' it too much, Mae! Turn it off!" Mae would just do what she wanted and then say "I shake it until I don't see anything else falling off." I got the feeling she was very used to his ways and he didn't phase her one bit.
Netted and ready for delivery!
Oh, yeah! A soccer-mom's van and the Griswold's tree!
That's right. I cut that tree down you see on the roof of my minivan. Move it.
Back home, I get the tree into a strange tree stand Janet purchased. It has a removable bowl with teeth on the outside. You put the bowl onto the stump of the tree, secure it with screws-bolts, then set the bowl into the base. Once you get it standing up where you want it, you step on one of the legs and it secures the bowl by gripping the teeth.
Janet and Keighly removed the netting.
Satisfaction.
I have succeeded in bringing home the desired quarry. Me Krog. Start fire in cave.
And now, for something completely different:
Before.
Yank.
Swish.
After.
You know the drill.
After supper (and a tooth extraction), Janet and the kids waste no time in attacking the decorations.
Janet has a very specific way she likes to decorate the tree.
I had purchased several Christmas CDs and I put them on while we decorated. We even turned off the hypnotizer/mind control box *gasp* (some call it a television, or "T.V.")
Now we're really into it.
Keighly and Ian are hanging ornaments at about their height.
Just look at that! Norman Rockwell, I tell you.
It doesn't get any better than this.
A view from Murry's vantage point.
Everything was going great,
until......
Timber!
The combination of a wacky-based tree stand and the kids only puting ornaments on one side made the tree unbalanced and it fell over.. Hard.
Sadly, many ornaments that Janet and I made when we first got married did not survive.
Note: Let me just take this moment and thank Janet for taking these pictures. She usually does not think to take pictures first and would rather actually attend to the emergency at hand. Thank you Janet for snapping these before cleaning up!
Well, at least we can laugh about it! No Norman Rockwell, thats for sure.. Our first live tree experience isn't going so well.
We solved the problem by purchasing a new tree stand and placing the ornaments distributed around the tree better. You can see the new tree stand in the bottom of this pic, it's like a lunar landar module or something! It cost twice what the tree did! But: our tree hasn't fallen since, even with the dogs constantly drinking out of the tree stand bowl.
Later, I got some lights up and our little reindeer display. Not much, but kinda festive. You can see our tree through the window on the porch.
-Matthew
Behold: Eddies Christmas Tree Farm, right outside of Columbia, MS. Looks like good hunting today!
Mmmm. Them's fine trees. Fine. Nicely shaped, aeromatic, spray-painted evenly.
This is the one! Full. Fragrant. Firry.
Get Busy
After double-checking the height (and the price) I went right to work severing the leafy part from it's root-bound appendage.
Success!
Free from it's land-bound life, our tree is pulled in the wagon by Ian to the tree-netting shed.
Ian is strong (3 years old).
That is Eddie in the back. He owns the tree farm. A rather loud fellow, he was constantly pre-occupied with the safety of the children who were scampering about. What seemed to be simple tree-farm items are apparently hand-crushing, finger-cutting, arm-bludgening torture devices when the kids get within three feet.
As the children look on, the tree is shaken to remove loose/dead needles and whatnot. That is Eddie's wife, I believe her name was Mae. Eddie would yell at her "You're shakin' it too much, Mae! Turn it off!" Mae would just do what she wanted and then say "I shake it until I don't see anything else falling off." I got the feeling she was very used to his ways and he didn't phase her one bit.
Netted and ready for delivery!
Oh, yeah! A soccer-mom's van and the Griswold's tree!
That's right. I cut that tree down you see on the roof of my minivan. Move it.
Back home, I get the tree into a strange tree stand Janet purchased. It has a removable bowl with teeth on the outside. You put the bowl onto the stump of the tree, secure it with screws-bolts, then set the bowl into the base. Once you get it standing up where you want it, you step on one of the legs and it secures the bowl by gripping the teeth.
Janet and Keighly removed the netting.
Satisfaction.
I have succeeded in bringing home the desired quarry. Me Krog. Start fire in cave.
And now, for something completely different:
Before.
Yank.
Swish.
After.
You know the drill.
After supper (and a tooth extraction), Janet and the kids waste no time in attacking the decorations.
Janet has a very specific way she likes to decorate the tree.
I had purchased several Christmas CDs and I put them on while we decorated. We even turned off the hypnotizer/mind control box *gasp* (some call it a television, or "T.V.")
Now we're really into it.
Keighly and Ian are hanging ornaments at about their height.
Just look at that! Norman Rockwell, I tell you.
It doesn't get any better than this.
A view from Murry's vantage point.
Everything was going great,
until......
Timber!
The combination of a wacky-based tree stand and the kids only puting ornaments on one side made the tree unbalanced and it fell over.. Hard.
Sadly, many ornaments that Janet and I made when we first got married did not survive.
Note: Let me just take this moment and thank Janet for taking these pictures. She usually does not think to take pictures first and would rather actually attend to the emergency at hand. Thank you Janet for snapping these before cleaning up!
Well, at least we can laugh about it! No Norman Rockwell, thats for sure.. Our first live tree experience isn't going so well.
We solved the problem by purchasing a new tree stand and placing the ornaments distributed around the tree better. You can see the new tree stand in the bottom of this pic, it's like a lunar landar module or something! It cost twice what the tree did! But: our tree hasn't fallen since, even with the dogs constantly drinking out of the tree stand bowl.
Later, I got some lights up and our little reindeer display. Not much, but kinda festive. You can see our tree through the window on the porch.
-Matthew
posted by Matthew at 8:51 PM
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