Christmas Tree Shopping The Old-Fashioned Way
Today we ventured out into the Black Hills National Forest in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
After four hours of driving slow to see what we could see from the roads and trudging through snow which was deeper than I'd anticipated, we settled on a slender Spruce in the 8-foot range. The shape is really nice, and once we string the lights and hang the ornaments it will be gorgeous. I love the big spaces between the layers of branches, which allows our treasured ornaments that we've collected from all our trips to dangle and be showcased.
I think we ended up in the area of our region that got 4-plus feet of snow in the recent blizzard. Unlike the snow we got at our house, most of the snow we saw today had not melted! What a workout.
By the end of the day, Mikel was out running around in the snow while we sat in the car and watched. He somehow crossed a creek and motioned for me to bring over the saw, which I had to throw across the water. After he cut our tree, he tossed it over the creek to me, but I was too busy taking a photo to catch it (not that I could have anyway). The tree kind of bounced back into the creek and, being the good wife, I fished it out before it could sail downstream.
We could have gotten a much fuller pre-cut tree from some storefront. But it's all about the adventure and memories being created, isn't it? What I don't understand is why, throughout 1.2 million BH National Forest acres, was it so hard to find a tree we liked? Maybe if we'd have gone deep into the forest we'd have found more choices. But with two preschool kids and a dog — as well as the hard-to-walk-in snow and it being a lot colder out than I thought it would be today — we stayed pretty close to the vehicle. From what we could tell, though, it seemed like all the much fuller trees were way taller with a huge bottom spread. Our $10 permit allowed us to cut a tree up to 20-feet tall. Problem is, our house just isn't that big!
Anyway, here we are! We'll have to start decorating it tomorrow, though we have an incredibly busy day and I'm sure we will not finish.
For tonight we just set the tree up in water and realized we'll probably have to trim the top just a bit.
Then we all watched "A Christmas Story," which the kids seemed to enjoy. Since I hadn't seen it in a year myself I forgot there were a few cuss words and the scene where the little boy eats his food off the plate like a little piggie (I hope mine don't try to mimic this.) and the scene where the department store Santa pushes the kid down the slide by tapping his big boot on the kid's head and the scenes where the mean bully kids are so mean. Of course we didn't stop the movie. I tried to emphasize that this was just a movie and he was just a pretend Santa.
After four hours of driving slow to see what we could see from the roads and trudging through snow which was deeper than I'd anticipated, we settled on a slender Spruce in the 8-foot range. The shape is really nice, and once we string the lights and hang the ornaments it will be gorgeous. I love the big spaces between the layers of branches, which allows our treasured ornaments that we've collected from all our trips to dangle and be showcased.
I think we ended up in the area of our region that got 4-plus feet of snow in the recent blizzard. Unlike the snow we got at our house, most of the snow we saw today had not melted! What a workout.
By the end of the day, Mikel was out running around in the snow while we sat in the car and watched. He somehow crossed a creek and motioned for me to bring over the saw, which I had to throw across the water. After he cut our tree, he tossed it over the creek to me, but I was too busy taking a photo to catch it (not that I could have anyway). The tree kind of bounced back into the creek and, being the good wife, I fished it out before it could sail downstream.
We could have gotten a much fuller pre-cut tree from some storefront. But it's all about the adventure and memories being created, isn't it? What I don't understand is why, throughout 1.2 million BH National Forest acres, was it so hard to find a tree we liked? Maybe if we'd have gone deep into the forest we'd have found more choices. But with two preschool kids and a dog — as well as the hard-to-walk-in snow and it being a lot colder out than I thought it would be today — we stayed pretty close to the vehicle. From what we could tell, though, it seemed like all the much fuller trees were way taller with a huge bottom spread. Our $10 permit allowed us to cut a tree up to 20-feet tall. Problem is, our house just isn't that big!
Anyway, here we are! We'll have to start decorating it tomorrow, though we have an incredibly busy day and I'm sure we will not finish.
For tonight we just set the tree up in water and realized we'll probably have to trim the top just a bit.
Then we all watched "A Christmas Story," which the kids seemed to enjoy. Since I hadn't seen it in a year myself I forgot there were a few cuss words and the scene where the little boy eats his food off the plate like a little piggie (I hope mine don't try to mimic this.) and the scene where the department store Santa pushes the kid down the slide by tapping his big boot on the kid's head and the scenes where the mean bully kids are so mean. Of course we didn't stop the movie. I tried to emphasize that this was just a movie and he was just a pretend Santa.
posted by The LeForts | 9:46 PM
2 Comments:
that is a beautful tree! What a fun day ya'll had. I miss having a real tree, I love the smell of them the most!
A Christmas Story is hilarious! It's Joe's favorite XMas movie.
I know this will stay with the kids for a long time. Great time of the year is Christmas. Can't wait to see all of you next week.
Love Dad
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