see.tree

It's Christmas time and our home was looking a bit un-festive. Basically we needed a tree and since we are in the area of cold and native growing firs... we knew what we had to do.

Chop one down ourselves!

We drove to Richardson Tree Farm in Illinois and suddenly transformed into (self-proclaimed) lumberjacks!

We had to ride on a tractor out to the trees and we were made to sing Christmas Carols along the way.

We walked around the tree farm for almost 2.5 hours! It is a tough decision. The tree had to be perfect. We saw all kinds of trees...
trees with bald spots...

Short trees.

tall thin trees (this was one of mike's favorites)

We walked around the area of tress probably 2 to 3 times (its several acres). Having lengthy discussions about what makes a great Christmas tree. Height, needle, smell, plump-ness, color and on and on. We would get to one and I would love it and mike would go... 'really? that tree... um... sure' which really means 'lets keep looking'. We would watch family after family discover their perfect tree, chop it down and leave. But we kept looking (perserverence ). Just when we reached our breaking point we (together) found it.
Our tree!

It was sititng there waiting for us the whole time and when we saw it, we knew.

Blue Spruce Fir.

Once we found it, un-snowed the limbs, the real work began... cutting it down.
We both sawed at the base a couple of times and then...

We took a break to make snow angels... duh!

Back to sawing. Mike did most of the work. I just tried to keep warm.

Timb-er!!!

Our first family photo... Mike, Mel and Christmas tree.

Here she is! Oh-Christmas Tree!!

!Merry Christmas!