Tabby's Tidbits: Fresh Cut Tree

One of my favorite childhood memories of Christmas was the family tradition of getting a tree. For as long as I can remember my family would go to a Christmas tree farm, pick out a tree and cut it down, for you can’t get any fresher then this! When I was a little girl we used to go to a local tree farm, just “down the road”, and get our “perfect” Christmas tree. You have to understand- getting this tree was quite the process. We first had to get my very slow moving father to agree that it was time to get a Christmas tree. Usually the chosen day would be a Saturday morning (because till dad got home from work during the week it would be dark), and we would then spend half of the morning gathering little snow boots, mittens and hats. Once we were layered in clothing, and bundled up to the point we could barely move, we would all pile in to my dad’s pickup truck, and drive the short distance to the Christmas tree farm. Here we would traipses up and down the hills, debate and argue over a trees, and listen to my mom complain about how cold it was. Usually after looking at about 100 trees, we would finally find tree on which the majority of the people (my family), agreed was “okay”. My dad would then cut down the tree, and then proceed to drag it either down the hill (if he was lucky), or up the hill, (“sorry Dad, this is the perfect tree even though it is at the very bottom of the hill and on the edge of the tree farm property), and put it into the back of the truck. As our family got bigger, getting tree got more and more complicated. We were always so busy, it was hard to find a time that everyone would be able to go, and eventually we had to take two vehicles, because we just wouldn’t all fit in the truck. And of course the bigger the family, the more voices, which meant more opinions on which tree was “perfect”. But nonetheless, every year, like clockwork, going out and cutting down our Christmas tree was something we did.

Matthew, on the other hand never experienced cutting down a tree until he met me, and my family. Their Christmas tree was stored in a box, and gotten out every year, and decorated only by his mom, and they (the kids), were not allowed to touch it! Were as my family decorated the tree as family. The first Christmas Matthew and I spent together, Matthew joined my family in the “tree hunt”. From that time on, Matthew proclaimed that we would never get a fake tree.

I am sorry to say that this year Matthew and I broke tradition. This year, our first Christmas as a family of three, our Christmas tree came from HOME DEPOT! Do not fear, the tree is still real, but I cannot even begin to explain to you how disappointed I was! This year, time was just not in our favor, and Home Depot is only a short distance away, so Home Depot it was.

In the years to come, I hope that we can go back to cutting down our tree. I want to spend a Saturday morning looking for little mittens, snow boots and hats, and placing my children in so much warm clothing that they can barely move, just to walk up and down hills in search for the perfect Christmas tree. I want this to be my one of my children’s favorite memories as well.