tree hunt

Christmas is my favorite holiday.

We'd been putting off getting a tree for a week or so citing a messy house, recovering from the holiday studio sale, Dave's work schedule, etc... We finally agreed that since Dave had Wednesday off, we'd do it then. He woke up Wednesday with an aching back, and I knew if I didn't just go do it soon, we'd end up with a tree like this:


So I called upon my trusty art camp sidekick and decorating accomplice Liz for help.
She's always up for an adventure, and jumped at the chance. (Plus, I think she was bored because school had been closed for days due to the snowstorm.)


We drove up to our local Methodist Church, where the tree lot was totally deserted but for a few trees and an empty, forlorn trailer. This did not deter Liz, who jumped out of the van and decided we should just pick a tree and slide a check under the door of the trailer. I figured they were working on the honor system, being a church and all.


We marched right over to the trees and considered the prices and sizes for noble firs (the tree of choice in the Northwest) and tried to calculate the size of an eight foot tree based on Liz's height of 5'7", until we noticed the handy measuring stick located next to the trees. Duh.

After careful scrutiny of over one hundred trees one tree, the choice was made.


While I went into the church office to find someone to leave a check with (the trailer door had weatherstripping all around it), Liz stuffed the tree into the back of the van.


We squeezed our cold, wet selves (it was snowing/raining) into the front seats with the fragrant, drippy tree trunk between us and drove slowly back home on the slushy streets.

Let the decorating commence!