The Tree Stands Alone
Christmas may have ended two weeks ago, but in our house, the needles follow you forever. Or at least until today, when we finally took down our ten-foot pine monster. Ever after a thorough sweeping, vacuuming, and sap removal, I am still finding remnants of our forest friend in my hair and in the carpet (and let’s just say there’s a reason why they’re called “needles”). During the removal process, I realized that I once again documented the process of how we adopted this beast, involved a surprisingly efficient trip to a New Hampshire tree farm.
Once again, a tree from the state we actually live in (and have for the past four years) would simply not do, so we had to venture to the great white north (and my home state, whaddup?) to nab ourselves a fine specimen.
Steve, who has completely refused to accept most modern forms of technology, found a location near my parents new home in Hampstead using a Christmas tree finder app. Yep. There’s an app for that.
This happened to be the morning of my ten year high school reunion, so time was limited. Gone were the days where I could spend four hours traipsing around a tree farm. We had to get to work!
Luckily, we came equipped this year with the one tool that we neglected to bring with us in the past. A ruler!
But who needs one of them newfangled measuring devices when you have the extremely accurate hand-to-air resource?
In his natural habitat.
Despite living in a very small apartment, we happen to have very tall ceilings, way taller than our last place. Unfortunately, that meant that there was no limit as to how tall we could go. This year, the Christmas tree odds were in my favor, and there were very few 9+ footers available in the fields, which was A-okay by me. That didn’t stop Steve from taking the whole process very seriously, especially with his own Mr. Miyagi there to guide him (a.k.a., his mom, where I’m guessing the tree gene got passed down from).
I obviously took the process very seriously as well:
Finally, thanks in part to obvious assistance skills, we found the right one for us. I tend to go for the more symmetrical type, while Steve thinks that trees should like like, well, trees. That’s how we ended up with this guy.
Psh, I didn’t even want all those sections filled in. Makes more room for my Barbies!
But the important thing was, we got a tree. In under thirty minutes! I didn’t know that was even possible. Steve’s parent’s picked out their tree too, because they also only allow NH’s finest in their home. The apple really doesn’t fall far…
Once we had made our selection, it was time to cut! After all, I had to get home to primp before the evening’s festivities. I was on the party planning committee, after all.
I didn’t do much of the heavy lifting this year, as I didn’t have the proper tree-cutting outfit. Luckily, Steve always comes equipped for these sorts of things.
Unlike the random guy’s yard that we picked our tree from last year (because once we started walking around, we felt bad being the only people there and decided that we had to buy a tree), this place was a fully functioning operation, featuring the latest in tree cutting accessories. Like this handy tree cart!
And whatever this thing is called:
Thank the tree gods for this netting thing, because I had no idea how we were going to strap that thing onto my car to get it back to Nantucket. I had heard that people get trees from off-island (since there’s nowhere here that you can actually cut down your own), but I bet most people have trucks and ropes and normal size ceilings that prevent them from picking out saplings longer than their cars. But we’ve never been most people, and for us, the one common denominator for all of our chosen trees have been that they are always longer than the vehicle we tie them onto.
Oh, it also started pouring on our drive to Hyannis. Because nothing says Christmas like a ten foot tall soaking wet tree that you get to drag up a flight of stairs to your apartment over a garage at 11 P.M.
And even though we were spending our first Christmas in a new place, something about this already felt like home:
I can’t imagine why?
Since the apartment is on the small side, we had to make some adjustments to the space to accommodate. Like removing half our chairs and shoving our “dining table” into the kitchen. Really, who needs a table anyway?
Actually, Steve did need it. See our step stool in the bottom right corner? Not cutting it in the height department. Also note there is a railing on the other side of the tree, and that’s it. So that was fun to watch.
But it was all worth it, because this guy loves Christmas trees more than anything. And I love him almost as much as he loves the trees. I say almost because I’m not sure if it is even possible that anyone loves anything more than Steve and his trees.
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~L
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