Our First Tree

We spent more time looking for our first real Christmas tree than we will shopping for presents! We weren't sure exactly what we were looking for and after all of the hours of searching ended up with a pretty interesting tree, a big Charlie Brown Tree.

My husband wanted a 10-12' tree, soft needles, and we wanted to cut it down ourselves. These 3 requirements made finding our tree a very difficult task.

We spent 3 weekends touring tree farms all over northern Illinois. Last Saturday after our first real snowfall we ended up at a fantastic tree farm, late in the afternoon. We rode the Clydesdale sleigh to an area full of trees. I just knew we were going to find our tree there. After a few minutes off the sleigh a tree about 9' tall caught our eye. Since we just got there we decided to keep looking.

About 20 minutes later we decided to go back to the first tree that caught our eye. My husband cut it down, slid it onto the tarp and started dragging it back to where the sleigh was making rounds bringing people back in with their selections. It didn't take us long to realize that they weren't coming back out with the horses, so Christopher tied up more ratchet straps and we both started pulling. Together we pulled our first tree 1/4 mile out of the woods to load it in our truck.

We brought the tree in the house on Sunday, ensured it was straight in the stand and started decorating. After all the lights were strung, and ornaments hung we headed to bed very satisfied with how nice the tree looked despite some of its flaws.

We spent about an our in bed that night catching up on some of our DVR'd shows from the week then tucked the dogs in bed. We heard a few crashes from the living room and assumed some of the ornaments must have slid off of the tree. While Christopher was peaking out our bedroom, I asked him what had fallen. His calm response, "The Tree". The 9' tree was sprawled across our entry way, broken glass and water everywhere. Our tree stand had broken.

We wiped up the water, swept up the glass, tied the tree to the stairway, and headed to bed. Fortunately, all of our special ornaments were spared.

Our first real Christmas tree turned out to be a symbol of our life this year. Our patience trying to find the right tree, our struggle pulling it 1/4 mile, it's collapse in our entryway, and us working together to clean up the mess. It was a difficult year, but we got through it together.