The Christmas Tree

Every year we get a real tree; we go to a tree farm and cut it down ourselves. We become very invested in our Christmas tree, and this means that our Christmas tree requires a blog posting unto itself. So this is it, finally.

This year we went to the Oakwood Christmas Tree Farm in Backwoods, CT, to get our tree with my mother, brother, sister, brother-in-law, the three kids, my sister's mother, father, sister-in-law, and my sister's niece. Three cars to get there - a tree caravan! Trees are less expensive in CT, and there are many indigenous varieties of Christmas trees in the northern portion of the state. The tree we got this year is some kind of hybrid tree, though. It's not a balsam fir, it's not a white pine, but it's something in between. It has the limp branches of a white pine but the thick needles of a balsam fir. It smells like an orange. We like it!

Picking out a tree is for some people very easy. Joanne, my sister's mother-in-law, always gets the first tree she sees. It's always on the very edge of the row, right near the parking area. It's always very small, too. That's fine; that method works for her. It doesn't work for anyone else in the family. The Sheridans are notoriously bad at making decisions, and picking out a tree is no exception. Doug gets very frustrated with all of us, but really all of our diligence pays off in the end, because we always get a great tree. Again, this year is no exception.

This is Doug and Brian at the tree farm, posing with one of the green beauties. We decided against this one in the end. Not special enough. Not the one.

This is Ma Soeur and my mother, posing in a sea of trees. This farm had a lot of trees. We spent a lot of time looking at each one. It was cold, but that didn't stop us from spending hours picking out trees.

Doug and I finally make a decision on a tree. This is the one! We are happy. Really.

Doug gets the honor this year of cutting down the tree while I man the camera. My mother acts as a tree helper. Doug, for whatever reason, tries to cut the tree one-handed. That doesn't last long.

And here's a NVNG first! A video! Watch and listen as we all discuss the felling of the tree... will it fall on Doug's head?

Here's Doug unwrapping the tree once it's finally in its stand in our front room, which means my mother was right - it didn't fall on Doug's head.

Doug puts the tree topper on and poses at this accomplishment. The tree sat like this, with just lights and garland, for a week before we actually finished decorating it. Apparently we don't like to rush things around here.

The Christmas tree, at night. Just lights. Very pretty. Probably could use more lights. I like lights.

The Christmas tree, in the morning. Finally decorated. Looks good!

Here's a close-up of the tree. We don't have a lot of ornaments so there aren't that many on the tree, but I think it looks good like this, actually. This way you can see each ornament and the tree doesn't look cluttered. We don't like clutter in this house. Clutter = bad.

And not only did we put up the tree and decorate it, we also put up some stockings and little Christmasy trinkets. This is our mantle decked out for the holidays, and also my mother's homemade nativity set on our dining table. She painted these in her ceramics class back in 1978, according to the bottom of pieces. I love this set (and so do Meg and Wyatt), and my mother has kindly given it to us. Thanks, Mom!


So that's Christmas so far in Dedham. We love sitting on the sofa and looking into the front room at the tree, and I love that you can see the lit tree from the road. Doug had it on tonight as I was walking up the street to the house from the train, and it made the house look so warm and cozy. Our house feels very much like home now that we have our first tree in it. We aren't going to want to take it down!