jimsjournal
Christmas Tree Shopping -- 11/30/02

We got our Christmas tree today.

When I was a kid we would get our tree just two or three days before Christmas. Nancy and I had tended to put up our tree a week or so before Christmas, but as time went on we began to put it up earlier and earlier, until we were doing it early in December. This way, after all the time and work invested in decorating it, we get to enjoy it longer... and, since we have only had fresh cut trees for years now, they stay in good condition during this extended period.

This will be our eighth Christmas in Rhode Island (although the first one, in 1995, wasn't in this house because we were staying with Nancy's mother while waiting for the red tape and paperwork to get completed so we could close on this house and move in) and, I believe, the fifth time we have purchased our tree from The Berry Farm on Rt. 2. You can buy trees already cut or you can take a hay ride out to where the trees are growing, pick out your tree, cut it down, and then ride the hay wagon back to the parking area by the farm house and barns.

I had thought this morning that we would all go to get the tree -- Sean had wanted to go, but he wasn't feeling well, complaint of a headache and general malaise -- so it was just Nancy and Jennifer and me. The process took a bit longer than anticipated (mostly due to a delay in the outbound hay wagon) and Jennifer was concerned about a friend who was meeting her to go shopping. We managed to select our tree fairly quickly... Jennifer had spotted it right away and although we did look around, we didn't see any that we liked better. (While I started to make the first cut I saw a camera flash and turned around to see Jennifer with a mischievous glint in her eye, laughing about the picture she had just taken of me, claiming that I must actually be a plumber by trade because of the posterior display when I bent over.)

Last year we did this in shirt-sleeve weather... this year was cooler, although not nearly as frigid as the temperatures were on Thanksgiving morning. The snow is gone... the last bits were washed away by a brief thunderstorm that moved through just before sunset today... I had planned on going for a run around four but decided that it was getting too close to dark and I'd use the treadmill and maybe lift some weights... good choice... if I had gone for the outdoor run I would have been about a mile from home when the storm hit.

So the tree is now on our front porch, waiting for tomorrow when we will bring it into the living room and set it up. I had thought we might start tonight but now Nancy isn't feeling well, has a low fever along with aches and chills and went to bed around five.

Oh, you may be wondering about the purple background color today... That's because of my daughter's hair color. Jennifer's hair is currently purple. At our huge Thanksgiving celebration one of the pre-school aged girls (the daughter of my niece) was looking for a purple crayon; she said she wanted to color her hair purple just like Jennifer's hair.



previous entry

next entry

To list of entries for 2002

To Home (Index) page