O Tannenbaum

For the first time in probably 15 years, James and I went out to cut our own Christmas tree. And we got a blue spruce—my favorite! In Cleveland, after a rather disastrous escapade to cut a tree our first Christmas together, we decided to just buy pre-cut ones from the lumber yard down the street. Much easier on everyone. And then in Tucson it was a major mountain-climbing expedition to cut your own tree, so we settled for the ones trucked in by Northerners and sold in plaza parking lots. Blue spruces were rare and expensive, well out of our financial league. Although we looked forward to being able to cut our own tree again when we moved back to the Northeast, the first 2 Christmases here were way too hectic to find the time. James ended up snagging one of the last few at the nursery down the street the week before Christmas both years...

So on Friday, when the sun decided to shine for once and we had the day off together, I went online and found the one and only tree farm in the Berkshires that has blue spruce and, after dropping the car off at Sears for a new set of tires, we drove the old truck down to Great Barrington and headed out into the boonies to the Seekonk Tree Farm. Fortunately, the owners were willing to bill us for the tree since we didn't think about the fact that they might not take debit cards! And, middle-aged wuss that I've become, I was glad we hadn't had any snow yet so I didn't have to get a faceful while sawing the tree down.

Now the tree is up, the lights and ornaments are on, and I made a Christmas tree skirt this afternoon from some flannel I inherited from my Mom's stash. (Why is it that the part that always takes the longest and is the biggest pain to do is the part that doesn't show anyway? Just something I've noticed.) And we had a beautiful fat snowfall yesterday that made everything picture perfect. The outdoor lights that Jesse & Mike helped James put up last weekend look like a confection covered in snow. Check out the pictures in the slide show below...