O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

We finally got our Christmas tree last Sunday....in the rain. Growing up, this was something I remember always doing the day after Thanksgiving. We had to do it that soon because if we waited much longer we would likely be trudging through several feet of snow looking for a tree. This is the view from the front of the house at Christmas last year. There were about two feet of snow on the ground.We lived up on a mountain and owned 80 acres covered in trees so we always got one out of our "yard". My father would take my brother and I out to find a Charlie Brown tree. That's one of those trees that are squashed flat on one side or just really sad in some other way. If we brought home too nice of a tree, my mom would be upset because she wanted the nice trees left alone to grow big. - Flat on one side was the best because the flat side would fit nicely up against the wall and that way you would never notice it.

Anyway, our neighbor (the same one who is a tuna fisherman) has a tree farm in a town called Siletz about 30 minutes away. It's quite a different experience for me to go to a tree farm. Not only is the scenery totally different, but we look for a "perfect" tree on purpose. It was drizzling heavily as we left home but we kept hoping it would stop raining once we got a little further inland. Nope, it didn't stop until after we had gotten the tree. As a matter of fact, it stopped just after we got in the car to head home. Dylan, who evidently was worried about melting, chose to wait under shelter while the rest of us tramped around looking for that perfect tree. We did find a great one and took it home to wrestle through the front door. It takes up the entire living room but it's wonderful having a Christmas tree again. We've spent so many recent Christmases at one or another of our parents' houses that we haven't had a tree at home in about five years now. It's not decorated yet, but it smells heavenly.