we are treed

The last two years, Jason and I didn't get a Christmas tree. Two years ago, we had every intention of it, but then while visiting my dad the week before Christmas, I came down with a horrid virus that left me weak and "oozing from all sorts of various places" (to paraphrase a Buffy episode I watched today). Just as I was recovering, Jason came down with it. Needless to say, not only did we not have a tree that year, we didn't have much of a Christmas, with no family (we quarantined ourselves just in case), no special food (Jason didn't feel much like eating), and no church (see the first item in this list). (Well, to say we didn't have a tree is a bit of a lie. We decorated our little palm tree with a string of lights and three ornaments. Deck the Halls!)

Last year, a tree seemed like a bit too much work. I was pregnant, tired, and emotional, and the work involved in rearranging our living room to make room for a tree seemed like too much. Plus, we weren't sure that we actually could rearrange our living room to make room. It was a very small living room.

This year, in our new house with all its glorious space, I was looking forward to a Christmas tree. Looking forward to the piney smell and the lights and seeing all the ornaments that have been packed away for three years. Looking forward to Gavin's reaction to the tree and the lights and the ornaments. I've struggled a bit with the Christmas "spirit" this year, and have tended toward grinchyness, but I kept forcing myself to think about Gavin and how it's his first Christmas and how grinchyness is not, not, not how I want to remember his first Christmas.

So on Sunday, yesterday, we went out to buy a tree. We drove to the place up the street, which advertises trees from $25. That is entirely too much for a tree, we agreed, but we decided to stop and see if they had marked anything down, since it was now less than a week until Christmas. No markdowns. Still mucho moolah. Moving on.

We went to Lowes, where my sister had told me they bought a tree the week before for $13. What luck! They had a sign out advertising $5 trees. Five Dollars! But sadly, the trees were worth only that much. You get what you pay for: skinny, scrawny, small, ugly. Charlie Brown trees. Charlie Brown have their place, but since we had other options (we hoped!), we decided to keep looking. Moving on.

The next place was advertising trees from $19.99 to $75. We couldn't imagine how (or why!) someone would pay $75 for a Christmas tree, but after finding out the place charged by the foot ($6-8/ft), it wasn't so hard to imagine. They had some tall trees there. The cheaper trees were under four feet, though, and would have looked rinky-dinky in our living room with the tall cathedral ceiling. Moving on.

The Andersons was next. The cheapest was $29, and again, they were small, short trees that just weren't worth that much money. We got to see an old friend from our Blockbuster days, though. He works in the wine department, and we stop by once a year or so to visit him. So it made the trip there worth it. Moving on.

After that I was pretty grouchy indeed. It didn't appear that we were going to find a tree that was within our budget (under $20 - we've never paid more than that for a tree!) and nice enough to be worth the money. I decided unilaterally that we just wouldn't have a tree this year. Better no tree at all than an ugly one that looked dumb in the house. Very grinchy of me, I know. But as I said, I've struggled with that this year.

So we went grocery shopping next. On the way home, we decided to stop (read: Jason decided to stop, as I had already decided no tree for us) at the place by our house. The first place we stopped at that day. He just wanted to see what the $25 trees were like. Surprisingly, they were nice. Tall. Full. Pretty. Piney. We found one we liked and we bought it. (Because I don't have enough parentheticals in this entry, I want to add that it was bitter cold out yesterday. At one point one of the tree lot attendants told us it was around 1 F with the wind chill. If I wanted, I could blame my bad mood and grinchy behavior on the cold. I could. But I won't.)

We came home and I made chili, improvising the recipe because I found we didn't have as much ground beef as I thought we did, and we ate dinner. Later we put up the tree and decorated it. We strung on the lights and opened up the boxes and made friends again with all our old familiar ornaments from years past. It turned out to be a nice evening - a nice day - despite my attack of the grinches. And the tree is nice too.

On the left you can see the palm tree that stood in as a Christmas tree two years ago.

Gavin did well overall while we decorated the tree. He sat in his high chair and feasted on cheerios and biter biscuits. Afterward, however, he set to the presents with gusto!

Posted by allison at December 20, 2004 10:35 PM