Breaking Tree Tradition

Several times in the last few years I've blogged about our traditional trip to a local Christmas tree farm to pick out one of the lovely white pines that I'm so crazy about. As we made our plans to go pick out our tree today after church, Chad suggested that maybe we should break with tradition and stop by one of the many stores in town instead. His point was that since we were no longer walking out into the tree fields to cut down our own pine (since I now refuse to buy the dry, prickly, Kansas born and raised trees), there was really no point to go the tree farm. Since we started the white pine trend, I've insisted that we continue to go just for the ambiance, but Chad pointed out that the ambiance was ruined by this old guy who works there who seriously tries to recruit Chad to work at his business every single year. It was really annoying, and since Chad spent our whole tree farm visit trying to avoid this dude, I decided I'd concede and we'd try a town tree instead.

We ended up stopping at the first store down the street from our church that had a huge selection of trees, which happened to be the Ace hardware store. They had TONS of white pines (compared to only 2 white pines at the tree farm last year) and we were able to pick out a perfect one in just a few minutes. The added benefit that we didn't anticipate was the cost--the pines at the hardware store were only $22. We paid around $70 at the tree farm last year and really had no idea we'd been overcharged so much!

So our afternoon was spent decorating the tree, with a little help from the dogs, who did a great job supervising. While I haven't figured out where I want the rest of the decorations to go yet (and I might need to go buy some more Christmas decor since there's more space to cover in the new house), the tree is at least finished now, and I think it looks pretty nice!


It feels good to be a little more on top of my Christmas preparations this year than in the past! I may not have much of the Christmas shopping done, but at least I have the tree up and the cards started!