Tree Cutting and Decorating

We’ve had an adventure. 

Kent got a permit to go cut our own Christmas tree, so this morning we headed up the canyon above Heber to find one. After last year’s somewhat fiasco and half-tree, I was determined to find a full tree, with branches all the way around. Seems a reasonable hope, doesn’t it? We borrowed Christopher’s truck so we would have a means of transporting our tree and started up the canyon. About the time we got to Timberlakes, Brandt said, “When’s lunch?” We left about 11:00 and had passed anywhere with food. I told him he was going to have to suffer because lunch wasn’t until after tree cutting. He whined.

 We had been driving for probably 45 minutes when an oil notification alarm began to sound. I pulled out the owner’s manual while Kent found someplace to pull over on the narrow canyon road. The manual indicated that we needed to add oil if there wasn’t enough, and if we didn’t take action, worst-case scenario, the car could catch fire. Kent checked the oil and all seemed fine. We waited for a few minutes, giving the truck a chance to cool down, then carried on. Blythe insisted we should turn around and go home, freaking out that the truck was going to catch fire and we were all going to be burned alive, but we were almost to our destination, and we assured her the manual had to give us all the possibilities, however slim they might be.

 

We carried on and found a spot to look for our tree. Our problem last year was that we found a tree surrounded by other trees, and while it looked full in situ, when we cut it down and pulled it out, half of our tree was actually another tree. So, I told everyone we needed to find a stand-alone tree so we could really tell what it looked like. We tromped around in the snow and found a couple of possibilities. After about half an hour, we went back to the first tree I thought was a good option. It was full, under twenty feet tall, and as a bonus, wasn’t too far from the truck. Kent sawed, he and I carried the tree to the truck, and Brandt offered words of encouragement.

Blythe took this picture.

She was with us, but largely chose not to participate,

instead sitting in the truck that might catch on fire.

 

As we drove into town, the oil alarm went off again. Blythe freaked out. Brant was hungry. We pulled over and had lunch, allowing the truck to cool off and to fill Brandt’s belly.

 

The adventure continued when it came time to decorate the tree. Kent and Brandt were both gone so I hauled the tree in myself and asked Blythe to help me get it in the stand. I dragged it into the house and discovered our tree was ENORMOUS!! It is tall and wide and takes up half the family room. It looked smaller in nature. Blythe helped me push apart the couches and we put the tree in the middle of the room. It is taller than the arched window and is so wide we won’t be able to see the TV very well, much less anyone sitting across from you on the other couch. We went from half a tree last year to a double-wide this year. It’s ridiculous.

Decorating was quite a process. I had to use twice as many lights as normal, use a ladder to get to the top parts, and use practically all of the decorations. The tree branches are very long/wide, so every branch has multiple ornaments, big and small. It looks kind of goofy, but the whole tree situation is silly, so it works. And all decorated and lit, it looks magical.