December 8, 2006
My little off-the-cuff entry about holiday letters yesterday got more comments (six! count 'em, six!) than I think any other post I've made since comments were activated. This apparently is a hot-button issue for a lot of people. I had no idea.
We got our Christmas tree today. Keith found himself with an unexpected day off, and so instead of waiting until Sunday, with the inevitable crush of crowds of people at the tree farm, we headed over this afternoon. The tree farm was predictably deserted; not only was it a Friday afternoon, but it was bitterly, frigidly cold. We always seem to pick the coldest fricking day of the fricking year to go buy our Christmas tree and this year was no exception. The temperature was 18 or so, and that was before windchill. (Note to those of you living in colder areas: I know that it gets colder elsewhere in the world; this fact oddly does not help keep me warm when my frozen butt is marching through the Ohio countryside looking for a damn Christmas tree.)
Anyway, after an emergency stop at Target to get some winter gear (unfashionable hat and stripey gloves for me; extremely high-fashion pink shiny mittens for Stazi) we arrived at the tree farm. Another customer was leaving with his tree just as we got there, and apart from him we didn't see anyone else apart from employees the whole time. And speaking of employees, Zeke charmed the pants off all of them, particularly the hard-of-hearing elderly gentleman who was in charge of driving the tractor. Zeke went up to him and announced loudly, "Hi, my name is Zeke!" Upon getting no response, he repeated himself a few times ("Zeke! My name is ZEKE!") and then started spelling his name just in case that would help. ("Did you know that my name is spelled Z-E-K-E?!")
The guy looked at him and then looked at me and told me that he is a little hard-of-hearing and what's the little feller talking about? I announced in the theater-style projection voice that I learned to use over years of having not one, but two, nearly-deaf grandparents, "HE SAYS HIS NAME HIS ZEKE. THEN HE SPELLED IT FOR YOU, HA HA."
"Well, hi, Ethan!" the guy said. Zeke said, "No, my name is Zeke! ZEKE! But I have a friend at school named Ethan!" I don't think any of this breached the sound barrier (so to speak), but as I said, the guy was charmed anyway.
After several more very lengthy minutes -- lengthier than the average minute, I'm telling you -- of this kind of back-and-forth, the wagon was blessedly ready to go. We hopped on board, were dropped off in the Scotch pine area, and upon seeing the Porta Potty nearby, Zeke promptly announced that he had to go to the bathroom. So he and Keith went and did that, and Stazi and I traipsed off into the field to hunt down a wild Christmas tree.
Stazi was actually a little more interested in hiking up the hill. We got about halfway up the hill and I stopped to look at a particularly attractive tree. She stamped her feet and said, petulantly, "MOMMY! We go up! Up there!" (Now pointing at the summit of the hill.) Then she turned around and kept chugging up the hill. So I followed her for a while and then, when it became clear that she fully intended to keep going until stopped by some force of nature, I intervened and coaxed her back down the hill "so we can show Daddy and Zeke the Christmas tree we picked out."
I showed Keith the attractive tree I'd found, he agreed that it looked pretty attractive, and we cut it down and hauled it back to the wagon.
As you might guess from the truncated nature of this anecdote, we are not picky people when it comes to trees. I am not about to be spending an entire afternoon in the tree field trying to find the One Perfect Tree. If it's more or less upright, mostly green, and looks vaguely triangular, we'll take it.
Back to the barn, where we had hot cocoa and hung out chatting with one of the proprietors while our tree was bagged and tied to the top of the van. It's currently set up, unadorned, in a tree stand full of water in our (uncarpeted) dining room. Once it's had a day or two to shed some early needles, we'll move it into its permanent location in the living room and put the decorations on.
A note about live Christmas trees: We could get an artificial tree. It would save money in the long run, we wouldn't have to worry about getting needles or pitch all over the carpet, we wouldn't have to traipse around in the snow for half an hour or more to find one, we wouldn't have to worry about it catching on fire and burning the house down, and we wouldn't be killing a tree. I know all this. But the Christmas tree farm plants more baby trees every year so I'm not really worried about personally decimating the Scotch pine population, and I like the smell of real Christmas tree, and I like having a different tree every year. Some year I might well get sick of this rigamarole and decide it's time for an artificial tree. But not this year. And probably not next year either.
Posted at December 8, 2006 10:22 PM
Posted by: laura c. at December 11, 2006 2:53 PM
A coworker of mine used to buy potted fir trees and keep them in the pot to use for two Xmas seasons, THEN plant it on his property. It's a reasonably priced option that adds to your landscaping.
We picked out a potted 3yr-old 7ft sequoia, specifically a Pacific Coast Redwood. It's kinda of a Charlie Brown Xmas tree, but 10 years after we plant it in the backyard, it will be too big to decorate! In 35 years it'll be 150ft. and we'll have sequestered a few hundred tons of atmospheric CO2. Won't folks in our little Seattle neighborhood be impressed? ;^)
Posted by: John Powell at December 11, 2006 3:41 PM
culture shock from a california reader: 18 DEGREES? 18 DEGREES?
also, you went to a place where you CUT DOWN your own christmas tree?!