It's beginning to feel like Christmas around here, finally! We went up to the mountains two weeks ago and cut our own tree, but we were storing it in the garage until last weekend when we finally made room in the living room to put it up. We had to rearrange my daughter's play area, and bring in a table so we could keep our little tree out of reach of curious hands!
My parents first introduced us to cutting your own tree a few years ago during the first Christmas after we moved back to Colorado from Tokyo. You get a permit from the Forest Service and go to an assigned area in the mountains to pick your own tree. It's really fun to meet up at the Ranger station first, where they serve hot cider and cookies, and then pile into the truck and head up the road. My family has always seemed to go for the spindly, orphan-looking, Charlie Brown-esque trees, even when we used to buy them from tree lots. There's an added charm, though, when driving past stands of tall, full, proud trees, and someone inevitably thrusts their arm out the window and exclaims "Over there! That one is
totally the Charlie Brown Christmas tree!" So my husband and I have sort of adopted the tradition, and love picking out a little straggler to take home and spit-shine with our folksy ornaments.
Highlights include the little gnome smoking a pipe:
A hand-sewn heart:
And this bride and groom set my sister picked up in Switzerland years ago:
We still haven't found a topper we like, so we've gone bare the past couple of years. Oh, and since taking the picture of the tree, we lost the maroon glass ball to a freak accident involving the window blinds. Oops!
And the bebe really got excited when I unpacked the mini tinsel tree, grabbing it from me then running all around the house like a little Christmas ambassador.
I finally caught up with her in the kitchen and, thanks to the magic of Dr. Seuss, I managed to trade her one "Hop On Pop" for one silver tree. The tree is now safely parked on a high shelf, where she can admire it from afar.
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