Last Friday, my husband and I spent the evening putting up and decorating a beautiful 7-foot Christmas tree in the "living space" of our apartment (we have a large room in the apartment that serves as living room, dining area, and kitchen, so it's appropriately a "living space"!). After work, we faxed a few documents to the VA office for my husband and then trekked off to a tree farm not far from our apartment (which proved helpful as we were taking the tree back to our place in the wake of rush hour and the remnants of a 3-inch snowfall the night before).
Here is a photojournal of the evening's adventures:
The tree arrives home! We picked a beautiful, originally 10-foot pre-cut Fraser fir from the tree farm. We had wanted to cut one down ourselves at the farm, but after faxing the stuff off to the VA, we found ourselves without much time before the farm closed and definitely not dressed appropriately for the outside weather. (My husband didn't even bring his gloves and only had a light fleece on - don't ask me why!) This was one of the very first trees we spotted - we went back and forth between the Fraser and the Balsam lots at the farm, and eventually decided that this was the one. When someone from the tree farm was cutting our tree down to size (7 feet down from 10), we worried that it might end up being too small for our place. My husband had reminded me consistently that he didn't want a scrawny-looking tree. Although I have a special place in my heart for Charlie Brown's tree, a puny tree was simply not going to do it for him. When we brought it back to our apartment, however, we realized that it was exactly the right size - not too short, and not too tall that it was scraping our ceiling.
Figuring out the tree stand; only after the tree was in the stand did I realize that this stand is the same one my parents' once had, the same one they had the year their tree toppled over! A pain to set up because it had eight screws in total, and a pain to screw into the tree (ours had a bit of a thin trunk), but it's doing the job so far, three days after putting the tree up!
Time for lights - B was setting up the computer with some Christmas carols when I decided to start tackling this project. It wasn't five minutes into my attempt when my husband decided it was time to do his own correcting. I'm glad he took over; the lights were always my dad's job when we were growing up, and I'll admit, I don't have any idea how to put them on "with that special touch"! :) After a few mishaps and some broken circuits (don't you hate when one chunk of the strand goes out for no reason?!), we were able to string three strands of lights on our tree.
The finished tree! :)
And yes, our stockings are hung on our wall, with a little help from 3M and their plastic wall hooks.....
Some favorites on the tree:
The German sausage of the famous Klement's Racing Sausages from Miller Park. A gift to my husband from my grandma, who gives away one ornament of each grandchild's choosing every Christmas. This was his pick :)
The Captain of the 2009 World Champion New York Yankees, Derek Jeter - one in a Hallmark series, and a gift from my parents a few Christmases ago. He is near the back of the tree, not to be seen by many, at the request of my husband, who can't stand him! (Also joining him at the very back of the tree is a Brett Favre ornament, that I chose off Grandma's tree two years ago!)
Linus and Charlie! It lights up and they have their conversation about "the" tree in the lot. A gift from my mom on the feast of St. Nicholas over the weekend.
It would not be our Christmas tree if Chewbacca were not on it!
The Holy Family, a gift to my husband from me, on the feast day of St. Nicholas.
In honor of all of our cribbage playing, a set of cards (and good cribbage cards, at that!) from my husband, on the feast of St. Nicholas. It will be a tradition in our family that each person receives an ornament from St. Nicholas to be placed on our tree.
Finally, a picture of our interim tree topper. Long story: we received "the bird" from my sister as a quasi-engagement gift last Christmas. Her only wish was that it would be on our tree every Christmas. As we were trimming on Friday night, we realized quickly that we were severely lacking a tree topper. We quickly rushed off to Target in hopes of finding one, but to no avail. A bit disappointed, we returned to the apartment, and realized that "the bird" will be big enough to suffice! He was placed squarely at the tree's top and has been there ever since. Needless to say, my little sister got quite a kick out of it!
The finished product aglow on Friday night.
Che bello, quest'albero!
It's not a perfect tree, but then again, neither are we. It's just simple and beautiful and a wonderful reminder of this season.
a presto
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