For the first time in my adult life, I’ve put up a Christmas tree. It’s Emma’s doing, mostly, this shedding of my years-long aversion to all things holiday. That and a few good Christmases in a row with my Aussie relatives and English in-laws.

Emma assured me that she’d done her research and found that visiting a local tree farm and cutting down a soon-to-be-replenished tree is the greenest of all Christmas tree possibilities—other than not getting a tree of course, which was totally out of the question for her.

And so on a very cold Sunday, off we went with Joey and Lorelei to Battenfeld’s, which is apparently a big tradition around here. It’s a few hundred acres of Christmas trees (of varying sizes and species) less than 15 minutes from our house.

Upon arriving, you pay a $10 saw deposit, and they send you off to pick a tree. Any tree is $50. Emma and I found ours in minutes.

I set to sawing while Emma provided encouragement.

Joey and Lorelei, not known for their decisiveness when confronted with an abundance of choice, surprised us by selecting a tree not ten minutes later. Baby Elliette, unfazed, slept through the whole affair.

I carried the tree down to the baling shed with the utmost care…

…only to have the baler thrust the tree through the baling machine as if he was actually trying to rid it of its needles. From the baling, to loading it into the car and finally hauling it inside, we left a trail of what seemed to be several trees’ worth of needles. The tree, remarkably, isn’t yet bare.

Now for the decorating. Emma picked up a bunch of ornaments and lights, dug out a CD of Elvis doing Christmas songs, and we started a-hangin’. (An aside: Emma’s college roommate had to request on several occasions that she not leave the Christmas carol CD on repeat.) I could only take one play-through of the holiday music—even with Elvis singing—so I sneaked in a little Badly Drawn Boy. Soon enough, we were in business.

Now, I draw the line at angels on the top of the tree—not that we had a spare angel in the house anyway. So we settled on Baci’s hedgehog chew toy for our tree-topper.

This got the dog’s undivided attention for several minutes, while we relaxed on the couch—the hedgehog watching over us as we sat in the glow of our twin laptops, taking in the pine smell, and feeling very pleased with our first tree.

(I promise, he’ll get it back on Christmas morning.)

tags: family, holidays | link to this entry |