I've been having a bit of a bother with the camera, lately, so I haven't had the pics to post. Some kind of "memory card error" that doesn't seem to have a fix. It's so random and frustrating. Oddly, it's also the perfect description of how my brain works. Anyway, the camera's behaving, now, again, for no apparent reason......so I took a picture of our Christmas tree! Finding a tree is very near the bottom of "Tom's List of Barely Tolerable Ways to Spend Time". Thus, it has always been. For him, as December approaches, it's a dreaded black cloud of a chore looming ahead, like looking forward to dental work, shopping for underwear, or changing the wiper blades (The Tree Search still rates a little higher than actually decorating the tree, however--more, tomorrow). Therefore, it was merciful that we found our Tree in the first lot we visited, Sunday afternoon. Whoopee!! Our record time for buying a tree, though, occurred several Decembers ago. We drove to Evergreen Nursery (5 min.away). Found a tree in 5 minutes flat. Paid. Drove home. All in less than half an hour !! Incredible! Other years, it's been more like a long, slow tooth extraction to find the Right Tree. Lot-hopping all over town. Looking at each tree trucked in from Oregon AND Washington. Well, not quite. We only like noble firs. No plantations dougs, for us (too thick! You have to PUSH the decs in, on those trees! No hooks required--they don't dangle!). No grands or scotch pines, or FLOCKED (In San Diego??? C'mon!).
Here, in Nevada County, as in other areas, they list three kinds of tree lots: those for "cut" trees, those for "cut your own" trees, and those for living trees. I hadn't done much of a scouting job ahead of time, so we just opted for the already cut trees. The living trees might be too heavy to bring in, but I'd like to check out the tree farms, next time. In every other circumstance, the thought of actually cutting a tree down (especially for such a transient purpose), would be horrifying! It's a cultural blind spot. I have to look at it as a different kind of "crop", like broccoli (which look like little trees, after all!).
I love our Christmas tree! I love the lights. We ONLY use white mini lights. Though, this year, they were pushing the new LED kind, to save energy. Which we will buy, of course. But not this year, since they're kinda pricey to buy all at once. We'll need a lot of them. On past trees of 8-9 feet, I've used up to 1200 lights. But, I'm looking forward to making the switch over, because, the little LEDs (while not quite so bright) NEVER BURN OUT!!! Hallelujah! I knew it could be done! I cannot even tell you about the frustration I've suffered, over the years, due to half a string going dark in the middle of the tree--or, worse, starting to BLINK (oh, no!)--and having to find THE flaky bulb! Where's the National Bureau of Standards? What about the Interstate Commerce Commission? Somebody DO something! Somebody finally did. For a price, of course.
Whoa! It turns out that we almost couldn't lift the tree and maneuver it into the house, it's so heavy! And we had forgotten about the ceiling fan overhead, so it's just a bit off-center. And it's not a perfect shape, but it has character, and we like it! It usually takes five, or so, hours to get the lights on. This year,I put between 1600 and 1700 lights on the 10-footer. I had to add 1 string of 100, after I thought I was finished, because 1/2 a string, in the middle of the tree WENT OUT!!! AARGH!! It looked like the dark part of a city in a power failure. So, I just plugged another set into the strip and threw some more in there to patch it (rather than try to find the little bad bulb) but now, that part is a little more dense than the rest. Ah, well.
Next, I'll add the cranberry bead garlands. Tonight. Then, I hope, by, uh, Christmas, all the decorations will be in place. More about that, later...
