When I was growing up, “picking out a Christmas tree” meant walking over to 43rd street with my mom and dad, looking at the selection of trees leaning against the side of the local Food Emporium, then lugging our pick the two blocks home and up into our fourth-floor apartment (and then retracing our footsteps with a broom to pick up the pine needles we’d strewn across the lobby and elevator floor). I’ve heard of people cutting down their own trees, but figured that was a pastime bestowed exclusively upon the residents of, like, rural Vermont. I also figured you probably had to be relatively adept with an axe in order to actually do this.
Not so, as it turns out. Apparently going to cut down your own Christmas tree is a pretty normal thing to do in parts of the world that aren’t New York City.
Huh!
Now, I am firmly on the Fake Christmas Tree boat – not because I want to be, exactly, but rather because real trees, in my experience, mean vomiting animals, and I can do without one more situation in my life that requires a roll of paper towels and some Fantastik. Also, Thymes Frasier Fir candles do a pretty good job of making your house smell all holiday-y. But GOD, did last weekend’s trip to the tree farm (with our friends Elise and Miles and their kids, a.k.a. the adorable plaid family you see here) make me want to give it another shot. It’s SO CUTE.
You start by drinking some hot cider and perusing the holly balls for sale (holly balls! hee), and then they hand you a saw (this seems unwise to me, but I suppose they know what they’re doing…?) and send you off to climb an actual mountain (or, whatever, a hill – but we had multiple toddlers with us, so it felt like a mountain) in search of your perfect tree. And? Found it. (For Elise and Miles. Maybe we’ll find ours next year.)
{ Above, woodsy style for you… }
{ …For him (that hatchet! I kind of want it)… }
{ …And for the kids. Aw. }
