O Christmas Tree!

Christmas is a really big deal for us.  Long Shadows always has a BIG Christmas tree.  12 feet tall and 9 feet wide at the base.  And it weighs more than we like to think about.

Over the years, we've had a variety of tree-hunting expeditions.  The first few years we went to higher elevations of the national forest looking for a noble fir.  It was a Currier and Ives kind of experience -- snow falling, the scent of fir, ground coated with white.  The reality is that ideal trees never grow right by the road.  We would cover acres and acres trying to find one that wasn't misshapen or that didn't turn out to be two trees when we looked closer.  We'd tramp up and down hills and back and forth between possibilities.  Then we had to haul a heavy, awkward tree at least a hundred yards through over-the-ankle snow, often uphill.  The glamour of that kind of expedition wore off after only 2 or 3 years. 

Since then, we still opt to cut our own tree, but from a tree farm a few miles out of Roseburg.  No snow, ever.  The trees are perfectly formed.  But they're still heavy, and we ALWAYS have to haul it uphill, because the grand firs we prefer grow on the farm's steepest hillside, below the road.

The 2009 tree experience was the worst in our history.  While decorating the big guy, we stopped to fix supper.  From the kitchen, we heard a strange noise, then a crash.  The tree fell!  Yes, toppled over and landed across the sofa.  The fact that the tree did not actually hit the floor saved the ornaments.  Only a couple broke.  The worst problem (after the adrenaline-fueled righting of the tree) was the couple gallons of water dumped on the Persian rug and the hardwood floor.

The tree lost its center stage location and was sent to the corner for being a bad tree.  The entire living room was mess for days as we dried out the rug and pad. 

But that was a learning process for us.  The trees will always be in the center of the stand from now on.

Over the years, we have devised an effective technique for setting up and decorating a 12 foot tree. It starts with making sure the tree farm's baler is working, and bringing home our tree tightly encased in twine. (The last year we didn't do that, the tree wouldn't fit through the front door.)

We untwine only a portion of the tree at a time.  Lights are strung and ornaments hung before we move to the next section.  Takes a while and looks odd midway through the process, but this is way easier than trying to position the ladder far enough into the tree's branches to reach the top.

This year, we ran out of lights about 2 feet from the bottom of the tree.  This delayed the decorating process.  When we took this picture, there were about 2000 lights.  A hasty trip to town to buy 1000 more lights and we were back in business.  

During the two days it takes us to decorate the tree, the living room is a disaster zone and totally unusable. 

We have a collection of Santas that grows every year.

2010 Christmas Tree

It won't happen this year, but we always dream of a White Christmas.