I'm a fan of real Christmas trees, I am. I even recently wrote a piece for Green Child Magazine finally answering a constant question in the green community: which is greener, a real tree or artificial? But this year, we found ourselves having a battle that found us grumbling the pluses of fake trees.
As with last year, we found our tree (and a couple of inexpensive, gorgeous wreaths) at Candella's in Marcy. It was a nerve-wracking trip home, between the line of traffic piling behind us and keeping a constant eye on the branches jutting off the car roof. When we finally got home, Hadley gave us a hell of a time going down for a nap (the time we were going to use to put the thing up).
Eventually, we started working on dragging the tree in and setting it up. The two lessons of the day are, if possible, determine how many branches REALLY need to be trimmed off the bottom of the tree when the gentleman asks how we'd like it trimmed and, um, we need a new tree stand.
Let's just say it took about an hour+ of frustrated finagling (and a couple of small pieces of scrap wood in the water bowl part of the tree stand as a makeshift support/wedge) before the tree was freestanding.
As I sit watching "White Christmas," I'm in a fowl mood, eying the unadorned tree. It's Sunday night and I now have absolutely zero motivation to even decorate the thing. But, since Had's STILL sleeping (um, it's dark out) and I know the glow of those glimmering white lights will be worth it. Coming in to the cozy glow at the end of the work day will be awesome.
But, at the moment, I'm feeling simply defeated. Oh, yes, we will buy another real one next year...but hopefully with a new stand and a keen eye for the "that one looks PERFECT!" allusion.
Who uses a faux tree here? Real? We grew up with the fake kind (and I remember some issues with those, but they were old school), but there's something about the smell of fresh pine that says "Christmas!" Oh, and I also strongly believe in white lights; not colored. ;-)
We also got our tree yesterday. I'm a real tree girl... it need to smell piney and drip needles everywhere and leave your hands covered in sap to really be a christmas tree! It's taken a couple years to remember that I should always have them take off more branches at the bottom than I first thought. Those tree stands need room! We always set up the tree and decorate it on different days... space out the festivities! I figure the tree needs time to settle before I load it up with ornaments. We've only recently converted to a white light tree... I guess that's what happens when you spend all our free time on interior design blogs! Those white lights really let the ornaments shine!
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