Christmas is looking up

Christmas Tree Day this year landed on a Sunday. The kiddos felt justifiably ripped off by this since they were going to miss out on getting out of school for half a day. But between The Man's schedule and The Girl's, Sunday was the only day it was going to happen anyway. As it was, the day was extra busy. It was the weekend of the play. Neither of the kiddos were in the play, but The Girl got herself recruited to make-up crew. She had to be at the school to do the make-up by 11:30. We picked her up at 12:30 and headed right out to the woods.
The snow wasn't knee deep this year out there, but it was really cold.That kind of cold that cuts right through you. We had to make this decision fast.

We had our choices down to three different trees that we named Double Trunk, Twelve Foot and Tubby. Double Trunk got kicked out of the running because... it had a double trunk and we worried about balance and toppling trees. Tubby also got the boot because we decided it was too short. (Looking back, it probably was fine but you lose all your perspective out there in the trees.)

That left Twelve Foot. As you can probably guess, it was a really tall tree. It was an odd tree too. The branches didn't go out sideways from the trunk as much as they went straight up. How was a tree like this going to work? In the end it was our best choice besides getting in the car and going to another tree farm. My toes were frozen and The Boy's shoes were soaked, so Twelve Foot was the winner.

The Man trimmed off the bottom branches...

and cut it down.It's not Christmas Tree day until we get this pose.

It was a monster of a tree. The biggest one ever we would soon discover.

Once we were home, we realized that Twelve Foot was probably more like Fifteen Foot. Even with the amount of trunk we left behind, we still have to cut about two more feet off to make it fit in the house. Once it was up we had to rush the kids back to the school for set strike. While they were gone, The Man strung the tree with lights and lights and lights.

And that's how it stood for the next five days, just lights draped on branches reaching for the ceiling.

Finally we had a day when we were all home and able to decorate.
It came out lovely, but it's not easy to hang ornaments on a tree whose branches reach up and not out.
Our hope was that the heavier ornaments would help pull the branches down making the tree look fuller.
It sort of worked.
And sort of didn't either. It's all good though.

Happy Christmas Tree...week.