Last Saturday we went to get our Christmas tree. I knew just where I wanted to go since I had happened by there earlier in the week to take photos of the ‘inflatables’ [what’s that? don’t know what inflatables are? sorry, that’s another blog entry coming soon.] and saw that they had lovely trees. So, back we went.

The parking lot was a very different scene from a few days ago. People bustled here and there, trees were being bundled up in their mesh bags for transport and loaded onto tops of cars and into trunks. Trees were literally flying out of the lot as fast as they could prepare them. It all led to a real feeling of Christmas spirit. A car with a Christmas tree sticking out of the trunk by several feet went by with a little girl in the back seat smiling from ear to ear, hugging her small dog. I remember her face. I knew exactly what she was feeling because I felt that way too.

The minute we stepped out of the car the smell hit us. The piney, well…Christmas-y, fragrance emanating from these fraser firs was almost overwhelming. I am a horrible Christmas tree shopper. I am very choosy when it comes to picking out a tree. Just ask Rick if you don’t believe me. He has always hated this part of Christmas and mostly because I would go from tree to tree, rejecting this one and that one. It’s a lot like shopping and he’d just rather pick one and get it over with. These trees were all so perfect [okay, they were raised on a tree farm in North Carolina and pruned and pampered to be beautiful their whole lives] that I was literally spoiled for choice. Which one when each is as lovely as the next? I think Rick was very pleasantly surprised when we made the quickest decision of all time. We’ll take that one! And here is our tree:

Another thing that I am not used to seeing is the variety of roping and boughs that exists back here in the East. Different kinds of pine, spruce, boxwood, fir, cedar were all available by the foot.

They had many different kinds of fresh wreaths as well.

Finally, our tree was tied to the top of our car. The dogs helped, as you can see.