Since this is the first time we have actually had room in our apartment for a tree (room for more than just the essential furniture items), we decided that when we saw a tree lot nearby we'd stop in to pick a tree.
Here is the PERFECT tree we found. It is pretty, no?
We got the tree on top of the car:
Up up and into the apartment:
And here is where it started to get interesting...We got the tree into the stand and then started to screw the eyebolts. And it wasn't necessarily easy.
Then Ryan cut off the twine and the tree began to spring to life and its full form.
As the tree unfolded itself I heard Ryan say, "The tree is totally crooked. NOW what am I supposed to do? I'm not equipped to deal with this!"
Indeed. The tree was a little crooked and it meant more struggling with the eyebolts. I suddenly had flashbacks of my parents wrestling with their own Christmas tree when I was a child. Ryan and I had even gotten that same stupid kind of tree stand my parents had always had. It was the cheapest one available - so you can't blame us too much.
As we straightened the tree (me holding the trunk 1/2 way up while Ryan messed about with the eyebolts...the perfect reflection of what my own parents had done so many times) I soaked up the scent of the fresh pine. And then I started to notice the other "gifts" the tree was giving us. 2-inch long needles all over the carpet. Sigh.
Another Christmas flashback of my Mom trying desperately to vacuum up pine needles and always wondering if they would "do in" her vacuum cleaner. I had a surge of compassion and knew that payback was here. I was merciless when my parents finally switched out real Christmas trees for a "fake." I know it is probably the ecologically wise choice and easier on the vacuum cleaner but....what can I say? I had never gone through all this hassle. I was probably off digging through the ornaments and dreaming of whether or not I'd get the "day to night" Barbie or not.
With the tree finally straight, we unraveled the 2 strings of 50 lights we'd bought along with the tree stand. We plugged them together and started the prickly process of passing them around the tree to one another. And then we realized our next challenge.
We only had enough lights to barely cover 1/2 the tree. This meant another trip out to get more lights. Sigh. The never-ending process of trimming the tree.We picked up more lights - this time 2 strands of 100 lights. Which definitely was enough. But since we had left the 2 sets of 50 lights on the tree and added to them, we found that adding a strand of 100 was not enough, but if we added all 200 it would have been WAY too much. So we gathered up any remaining patience and stripped the tree of lights. We then added 250 (instead of 300) and while it was just a tad sparse at the top we decided to go with it. As Pooh Bear would say....."Oh bother."
With the tree twinkling I embarked on a real Christmas task - sugar cookies. Fortunately I had a box mix from Crate & Barrel to simplify the task. But the simple part is the mixing of ingredients so the mix didn't really knock THAT much time off the process. The real work in sugar cookies is the rolling out of dough, pressing out the shapes with cookie cutters and then re-rolling the dough to do it all over again, and when that is all done, the time it takes to ice all those blasted cookies. As I slid the first sheet of cookies in the oven I vowed I would not put any icing on them. Just a sprinkle of sugar. I needed to build up my Christmas cheer somehow and icing 50 cookies would not help in the least.
This was a good decision considering that making and baking the cookies alone, took up about 2+ hours of time. But it was worth it.
With cookies smelling so sweet we decided to brew up some mulled & spiced wine so we could enjoy both as we decorated the tree that night.
And then at last, the fun began. It didn't take long to trim the tree, but since it was our first time to have our own Christmas tree, we were both pretty sentimental.
When all was said and done....I think the tree turned out beautifully. Pesky pine needles and all.
As my family always said after finishing the tree...."this is the prettiest tree we've ever had. It's perfect."
2 comments:
Beautiful! I have to say that I can still find pine needles from LAST year's tree in our garage...sigh. Jenn
Oh PERFECT indeed...it looks great!! And, just to put your green minds at ease, I actually just heard that real trees are MORE ecologically friendly than fake ones b/c of all the pollutants that are created in making the fake ones. PLUS, you can recycle the real tree and they use it for making mulch, wood chips, etc.! :)
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