Hello, dears!
I’m finally making the annual “Getting Our Christmas Tree” post! This year the experience was… heh, interesting. We kept having troubles with the tree and the decorations and… yeah. This will be a Christmas to remember! :’D At this point it’s a wonder the poor thing is still living (sort of) to tell the tale!
Speaking of which, I should get started with the post now. Once upon a time, there lived an average, unsuspecting evergreen on Christmas tree farm…
Ahem. This year we went to the same Christmas tree farm as we did last year. It’s a lovely place, and quite close, which is a bonus when you drive forty minutes to most things.
The one problem with this farm is, the trees are really short, as you can see in this picture (well also my whole family is super tall, but XD). There weren’t many over eight feet, and we wanted to get a tall one to fit the space we had in mind.
So we strolled all over the farm, searching for tall ones without too many gaps. Somehow the shorter ones always looked so cute and nicely filled in. LIKE THIS GUY. Isn’t this tiny Christmas tree just perfect? And just Carmen’s size. 🙂
While we continued looking, Dad went up to the car to get something (a saw? I don’t remember), and took back Mom’s and my purses while he was at it. We said a guy carrying two purses probably looked suspicious, so Dad wondered if he should walk like this: (and proceeded to hunch over and sneak from tree to tree). :’D Ohhhhh dear. But he made it to the car and back and no one stopped him! XD XD
It seems like whenever we go tree-hunting, we always have to cover every square foot of the farm before we find the right one – can anyone else relate? 😛 I think it’s fun, personally, but poor Jeff had a cold and wasn’t feeling well, so he wished we would hurry up and pick one. Heh.
We finally decided on one of the tallest white pines we found, which was just 7 1/2 feet. Dad did the honors, as always, but Logan held the tree on the other side and just lifted it off the ground before it fell. We were like, “WELL! That was anticlimactic!” 😛 (Side note: WHOA, you can’t see Logan at all in this photo so it looks like Dad’s lifting the tree one-handed. XD)
Of course I had to get the classic carrying-the-tree-back shot. 😉 Just my brothers did it this year.
Or, until Jeff was too weary, after which Logan just carried it himself. XD
We weren’t able to decorate it until a day or two after we bought it, and when we did… eh heh. Dad accidentally trimmed off too many branches from the bottom which made the tree looked REALLY WEIRD. The trunk stuck up so high above the stand that it just looked comical. Especially in real life – it’s not as bad in the picture.
Thus ensued a long debate on whether we should trim the trunk or keep it the way it was. We ended up trimming it off – Dad brought a saw (not a handsaw) into the house and trimmed the trunk off over a towel. :’D It was quite amusing to watch the sawdust flying and hear the noise from cutting a tree IN THE HOUSE. Anyway, Dad did an excellent job and it looked MUCH better afterward. Finally, it was time for the lights.
As you can kind of see from this oddly edited picture, we used colored lights this year, because all the white lights were on Megan’s reindeer. *unimpressed look* She got these random wooden reindeer from an auction and decided to completely cover them in lights, so that’s where those went…
(Hmm, I think I’ll just stick to black and white now. XD The lighting was NOT good.) At last, once the lights were up and the preliminary glass ornaments hung on, we started the best part – placing the family ornaments!
HAHAHAHA. Megan cracked up when she found this ornament that used to play obnoxious, tinny Christmas music but had since died. She and Jeff used to wake up everyone on Christmas morning by pressing the button. *shakes head* Ironically, the ornament had the word “peace” on it. :’D (Yes, I know the picture is blurry but sometimes blurry happiness is the best kind. 🙂 )
(In case you don’t agree with the last sentence, here’s a clearer picture, which I also quite like.)
Ta-daa! Here’s the ornament-loaded result. White pines are nice since they don’t lose needles easily, but the branches aren’t quite adequate for all the heavy ornaments we have. O.o
I have the most ornaments since I’m the oldest, heh heh. I seriously got a TON of ornaments – and some really pretty ones, too! Like these little porcelain shoes.
Whenever we finish the tree, we turn off all the lights and admire it while having hot chocolate and cinnamon toast. This picture of my parents might be my favorite in the post. 🙂 ❤
Ahem. As nice as that all sounds… IT WASN’T THE END. The following day, a sibling that will go unnamed was trying to straighten the Christmas tree and knocked the whole thing over. *facepalm* :’D :’D OH MY GOODNESS. It was a little bit awful, but mostly hilarious (to me, at least), especially since the fall only broke two or three ornaments somehow. It still could have been a disaster, but Mom’s an excellent sport, most thankfully. They got all the bits cleaned up and the tree back up again, but ohhhh dear. XD
I don’t remember whether this happened before or after, but at one point Mom decided she really didn’t like the colored lights, so she bought white lights instead and re-did the tree. O.o It was kind of a bummer that we couldn’t keep the work we’d done together, but I agreed with Mom that the white lights looked much less tacky with our huge variety of ornaments and slightly scraggly white pine. XD
Behold! The (hopefully) finished result! I think it looks quite lovely now. 🙂
I shall end with a classic ornament picture, because they’re still pretty even if they’re cliche, right?
Well! Now you know the interesting and traumatic backstory of our poor Christmas tree – kept in a net for days, trunk trimmed and re-trimmed, knocked to the ground, decorated and redecorated… but it is a SURVIVOR! :’D Oh dear. We shan’t forget this tree anytime soon!
Do you have any interesting Christmas tree stories? Do you get real or artificial trees? Colored lights or white lights?
Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!
***Allison***
P. S. Photos taken with my Nikon D3400 and a 35mm lens; edited with picmonkey.com.
Allison Marie 
My reindeer are a most excellent reason to not have normal lights!
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HUMPH. Okay, they ARE pretty cute, but STILL. :’D :’D :’D
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Ehehehe.
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this discourse *dies laughing* also our tree is like ye high and is filled with a mishmash of things hanging on it, so yours looks wonderful by comparison. XD
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HEE HEE. I’m glad you found it amusing. *nods* And oh dear, ha! XD It still sounds wonderful. 🙂 ❤
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Hehe. XD Ye high? That’s what dad always says. XD Haha well those trees are always interesting to look at!
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Ha ha, yep!
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Allison we purchased our tree last week. Yesterday Marilyn put on the lights(colored). Tomorrow we will decorate it. One year we were all sleeping and we heard a crash. The tree fell over. It was put up and secured better. Our cousin had the same problem too. The tree is 8 feet almost touches the ceiling.
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY,Healthy New Year.
Marilyn,Joan and Marion
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How fun! I hope you have a great time decorating the tree tomorrow. 🙂 HAHAHA, OH MY, it’s too funny that the tree fell over for you guys too! Ooh, 8 feet is a lovely height. Merry Christmas to you all as well! Thank you for the comment. ❤
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Oh wow. I may have had very wide eyes when I saw that picture of the baby shoe ornament in the tree! I have the SAME ornament and it is my favorite! It has my birthstone on it (December) and I always put that ornament on last. Lol! Isn’t that cool? Loved this post!!!!😍🎄
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SERIOUSLY? That is SO funny! Mine has some sort of gem thingy, but I don’t think it’s my birthstone because it’s pink and I believe May’s birthstone is an emerald. Anyway, that’s hilarious! I’m so glad you liked the post!
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OH MY. What an adventure. I quite enjoyed this post 😂 And yes, your poor Christmas tree is such a trooper. We had a rather uneventful year in terms of our tree, we just put up the fake one and a few of us decorated it. It’s been a rather long and tired holiday season in our house haha 😝
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BAHAHA YES. Oh goody, I’m so glad you liked the post, dear! Heh heh, IT IS. That sounds… yep, pretty low-key. 😛 Aww, I’m sorry about that.
Hopefully your Christmas is wonderful!
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What a cute tree!!! 🎄 I’ve always wanted a Christmas tree. My family and I have talked about getting one! Maybe we’ll have some Christmas tree stories. 😀 However, we always decorate our patio with lights! My dad really likes to get into it. This year, we actually hung them up before Thanksgiving! He always likes to do it at night in the cold. It’s always fun!
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Thank you, dear! Christmas trees are lots of fun, but they are lots of work too… Ooh, that sounds gorgeous! :O How fun!
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Oooooh so lovely!
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Thanks! 😀
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You’re welcome!
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Yay, I love the annual Christmas tree post! We’ve had a fake tree for the last several years, and we use colored lights. But you can hardly see the tree or the lights because we have SO many ornaments! 😆
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I’m so glad! HA HA, WOW, that must be a lot of ornaments! We have a bunch too.
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GOODNESS, ALLISON. Your poor, poor tree. :’D Thank goodness it survived in the end! Despite the tragedy, I quite enjoyed reading your documentation of the adventure + seeing all the lovely photos! I really love the ones of Megan laughing, they’re so happy. 😀 Our tree this year was a bit of a disaster, too – we got it from Lowe’s, but had no one to help us attach it to anything, so my mom and I spent about 30 minutes tying it to the top of the minivan with a very large amount of questionable twine and then just hoping for the best. XD Thankfully we got it home, where it’s now covering all of our ornaments, our hands, and the living room floor with sap. 0_0 Heh heh. It looks quite pretty, though! 😀 Lovely post, as always. 🙂
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BAHAHAHA I KNOW. I’m glad you enjoyed the post, dear! Hee hee, I love the ones of Megan laughing too. 🙂 OH MY, that’s hilarious (and sad) about getting your tree. *shakes head* I’m super glad it got home safely, but OH NOOO. That’s the worst. XD Good thing it looks nice! 😛 And thanks for the lovely comment. 🙂
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When I was really young my family would try to find a real Christmas tree to put up even if it was a small one. But eventually we decided to get a fake one and put that up every year instead. Since getting married I have lived in very small apartments and don’t have much space to decorate a lot or put up a tree. And this year I am living in Israel which makes finding and buying Christmas decorations even harder, not to mention our apartment being tinier than our first one. Its fun to see pictures and read other people’s stories of decorating for Christmas since I don’t have much of my own this year.
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Wow, I loved reading this comment, Hannah! How neat that you live in Israel! But yeah, that does seem like it makes Christmas decorating hard, with living in a small apartment. Well yay, I’m glad you could enjoy this post at least! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas wherever you live. 🙂
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Love your story!
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Why thank you!
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OH MY GOODNESS!! O_O That sounds like a VERY interested experience. XD This post made me laugh out loud a LOT. XD XD To answer your questions: One year we got a pine tree of of our farm ( a small one XD) and used that as our tree. Well, the next day spiders were EVERYWHERE. I don’t remember this to well (thank goodness) But we have never done that again! XD We get real trees. 🙂 I like all lights! We have blue, white, and colored on our tree. 😛 Your pictures are SO. GOOD!!!! I really loved them! Awesome post! 😀
-Laura ❤ 🙂
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BAHAHAHA YEP. It was. XD I’m SO happy it made you laugh, hee hee! OH MY, seriously? O.o That’s… fun. XD Once that happened to us, except it was with baby praying mantises! O.o Real trees are the best! That’s great. 🙂 😀 And aww, thank youuu! I’m so glad you enjoyed the post, dear!
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hehe, that is hilarious! We got our Christmas tree last weekend, and so far, it hasn’t suffered much abuse! The worst thing that has happened is our cat trying to climb it and knocking down way too many ornaments in the process! Does your cat ever try to climb the tree? For some reason, this is our cat’s train of thoughts; “Ah! The humans are setting up a tree for me! How kind… And now they are setting down a blanket for me to lay down on! How sweet… AH, THERE ARE BRIGHT LIGHTS! I MUST GO INVESTIGATE…. oooh there are shiny balls on the ground! I wonder who knocked them off? Ooh, they roll everywhere! Gah! It’s getting away! I have to chase it!!”*End thought train* And it goes that way every year!
Great post! Merry Christmas! Have a great new year!
~Claire
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*grins* Yeah! XD Phew, I’m glad your Christmas tree is alright, despite the cat climbing it (ha ha, oh dear). BAHAHA, I liked your translation of your cat’s thoughts. :’D That’s too funny. Thankfully our cats are much too fat and lazy to climb the Christmas tree. :’D We’ve never had trouble with that, thankfully.
Thanks so much for the lovely comment, Claire, and yes – same to you! ❤
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We decorate an artificial tree. Know it doesn’t smell like a real tree but it kinda be there for this season, ya know? Hehe…
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Yeah, there are definitely pros and cons to each. *nods* You can leave artificial trees up as long as you want!
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Wow! Sounds like quite the adventure! I love the Christmas tree farm photos! The only Christmas tree farm near us has a “pick your tree day” in October, then people pick them up at the end of November/early December. We missed the tree picking day, so we ended up getting a artificial tree this year. XD The colored lights looked nice, but I do prefer golden lights. I think they kind of bring peace to a tree with many different ornaments. 😉
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Heh heh, IT WAS. XD Thanks so much! Whoa, really? That’s strange. I’ve never heard of tree farms doing that, but it sounds kind of neat. Yeah, I agree with you!
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Wow! It seems like you guys had quite the adventure with that tree…
We always have an artificial tree(it looks quite skimpy this year) but your tree looks really nice, and your photography makes it look fantastic!
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Ha ha, we did indeed. XD
Aww, well thanks! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. 🙂 🙂
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You too!
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Wow! I enjoyed reading the crazy adventure of the Christmas tree! Your story exemplifies why we shouldn’t get a real tree–my sister and I are slight perfectionists when it comes to the Christmas tree and decorating it, and we always try to get the tree to look as good or better than the last year. Thus, I don’t think getting a different tree every year would work so well, since I would be comparing the year’s tree to some idealized Christmas tree in the past. However, I think it is nice to have a different looking tree every year, and of course real trees look great. I do prefer colored lights, though I see the appeal of white lights. This year we have white twinkle lights on the banister, colored twinkle lights in the entryway, colored lights on the mantle, and LOTS of colored lights on the tree. I love putting up lights. 🙂
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Heh heh, THANKS. XD Oh dear, yeah, well you might not enjoy real trees if you’re a perfectionist, then. XD But yes, it’s a lot of fun! Ooh, that sounds lovely. Christmas lights are amazing. 🙂
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