Oh, Christmas Tree

It snowed, finally, if only a little bit, so we made our annual pilgrimage to King's Tree Farm for the Strother Family Christmas tree! Lisa, Willy and Pippa went with us.

Since things get dark in these parts before 5 pm nowadays, we had to bust Delia out of school a little early so we could get up the mountain and have time to find a tree before dusk.
Is it as good as the Griswold's? I made them walk for MILES (ok, not really miles, but maybe YARDS) to find it. The first one I picked out was a 12 foot tall hemlock, which might actually have been a denizen of the surrounding forest and not part of the farm. Keith vetoed it. This little guy is a blue spruce.
Darkness fell over the tree farm (although the moon was full and bright enough to light our way) as I tried to pull the truck out of the muddy parking area so Keith could throw our tree in the back. It didn't move. Lisa and Willy pushed and rocked it, but there was no purchase to be had in the three inches of mud. Keith and Delia made their way over eventually when I didn't show up over the hill. It took some serious doing - I think there were some rocks from the drainage ditch involved, shoved underneath the tires, and a great deal of pushing - but eventually we got the truck back on the road! YAY!

The man who runs the farm came looking for us, I think, about the time we pulled into the bailing station with our trees. He was super nice, and gave us a bunch of extra white pine trimmings for decorating. This was the eighth year in a row that we've gone to Kings for our tree. I love it there.


Of course we had to cut a little over a foot off of it to fit it in the house, and it still curves over a bit at the top, just like we like our Christmas trees to do. Lights are pink LEDs, which I am madly in love with. They are almost bright enough to read by! I reckon we'll get around to putting ornaments on it sometime tomorrow, but I honestly don't mind having just the lights for now.