Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We found our tree

The family trekked up to the Santa Cruz Mountains on Saturday afternoon for the annual Christmas tree haul. We hit the usual area (Bear Creek Rd just past Lexington Reservoir), but we tried a new tree farm this year.

It seems that the pickings get slimmer and slimmer each year. Perhaps another indication of overcrowding in the Bay Area? We tried a different side road, and found a place called Faty’s Tree Farm. No untruth’s in advertising here. It took us all of 15 minutes to find a nice fat Douglas Fir that stood about 9.5 feet at the peak.

The view from Faty’s was absolutely incredible. You could see Monterey from the summit. Unbelievable weather for a December day. I wore shorts, t-shirt and a light fleece sweater and I was fine. Gotta love California weather.

After cutting the tree down, we hauled it back to the truck and tied it down on the roof. I think we were door to door in less than an hour and a half. I don’t think I could have plucked a tree from the Home Depot down the street any faster.

This is serious stuff

I must admit that I was seriously considering the Depot this year. It’s a lot of work to lug the kids up to the hills, and it typically consumes an entire day. Sonya reminded me that Ryan always gets the shaft when it comes to doing stuff like this, because we peeter out after having been there / done that with Karsyn.

She was right. He deserves to experience these events, so Home Depot gets to wait another few years before we go that route.

The 9.5 foot tree we brought home had to be trimmed a bit, because we only have 8-foot ceilings, so I lopped off a bit of the base and the top. Dragged it into the living room and set it in the stand.

Low and behold, we picked a winner. It is indeed a fatty. Nice and healthy…at least for the next 30 days.

The decorating crew

Sonya strung the lights on the tree, while I hung our exterior lights on the perimeter of the house. I have to say that there’s nothing more irritating than a strand of lights that is half dead. These things are cheap enough these days that it’s not worth the time to try and find that one damn bulb that’s burned out, so we have a dead patch for a day or two (until I can get down to Thrifty’s and buy a new strand.

After the lights were all up, the kids went to town on putting ornaments on the tree. Ry really had fun. He’s a bit of a non-conformist, insisting that his ornaments be hung on the bottom 2 feet of the tree. Of course it doesn’t help that he’s under three feet tall himself, so we’ll live with the bunching!

After all was said and done, we ended up with a pretty darn nice Christmas tree. I can’t remind myself enough how lucky I am to have such a great tree trimming crew. They did a wonderful job.

Our Tree!