The Christmas Tree is In The House

My husband and our friend D went off this afternoon to the Christmas tree tent on Highway 3. They've done this together every year now for the past three years, when D and A and their son C moved from NY to TX. Before that, my husband and I would go to pick out the tree. I don't mind not being included in this little adventure. In fact, I prefer it this way, but it does have its drawbacks.

Send husbands out tree-shopping on their own and you can end up with a 12-foot tree in the middle of your living room, like we had last year. In fact, last year's tree was 14 feet high, and I didn't find that out till this afternoon when D mentioned how huge that tree was. I told him that I thought it was 'only' 12-feet high. My husband said he didn't want to tell me it was two feet higher because he knew the extra two feet would freak me out. Which it would have. I wasn't thrilled with having that forest in the middle of our living room, even though it was absolutely beautiful. But climbing a ladder to decorate the top of a huge tree isn't exactly my favorite thing to do. I think I broke every one of my fingernails on that ladder last year.

This year's tree is about 9 feet high, which is just enough. I'll have to get up on a ladder, but at least I won't be balancing on the next-to-the-top rung of it. I know that before picking out this tree, my husband probably looked at every tree inside and around the tree tent, which is the part of the excursion that I can do without. My method of tree shopping would be much quicker. My husband likes to browse. And browse. So he and D go off on their own, and browse to their heart's content, and I just keep my fingers crossed that they don't come back with a steroid-fed fir.

I think this year's tree is a Frasier Fir. That's the tree my husband almost always gets. They're picture-postcard beautiful, with sturdy branches to hold the vintage lights and blown-glass ornaments. The branches don't have that thick bottle-brush look, which I hate, and this particular tree has little 'pockets' all around the tree where our biggest ornaments can be nestled and be safe from knocking into lights and ornaments which will hang on branches below them.

My husband and D asked one of our neighbors to help set the tree in place. We have a tree stand made of thick steel, with heavy-gauge links that go up the trunk of the tree and are held in place by steel brackets. The stand alone weighs a ton. Since we've always had big trees, we needed a stand that would hold them securely. Can you imagine a 14-foot tree falling in the middle of your living room? Perish that thought. Add into the equation that we have a dog and three cats, any one of which could send a tree crashing down if it wasn't securely set into a sturdy stand. Actually, we've been lucky with that. Gracie just sleeps next to it, and the cats go underneath and curl up to either nap or peek out into the living room like furry spies.

It will take my husband at least a day to string up all his antique lights, then I will do all the ornaments and embellishments. When it's all done, we will do what we do every year: we'll sit on the sofa and look up at the tree and declare that it's the best tree we've ever had.