Ah, Christmas tree

Bill and I enjoyed a first yesterday. We've been married 34.5 years, and, until yesterday, we'd never gone to cut a Christmas tree together. Now, we have put one more notch on the Bucket
List, and it was an especially nice notch.

I have no really good excuse for why we've never collaborated on this festive seasonal chore before. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was a teacher for the first 28 years of our marriage. The month before Christmas was always heavily laden with too many things to do and not enough time, so I've pretty much deferred Christmas tree responsibility to Bill, the forester.

Bill will tell you that his early years of searching for and bringing back the annual tree were shakey, at best. Back in those days, Bill and I had different perspectives on holiday tree
quality. He was a Charlie Brown man through and through, while even though my maiden name was Brown, that bore no relationship to my outlook.

I always liked the bushy, well-shaped variety because its plumage could make up for my lack of talent and ornaments in the decorating process. Take a Charlie Brown tree and a Marianne Brown talent-impaired decorating touch, and we were guaranteed a product too highly reminiscent of my 4-H apron and my air-conditioned slip (sewed and ripped out over a six-month period as a second-year sewing project).

The years moved on, and Bill's eye got sharper. He brought home better trees. He brought home trees from Dwight Crowell's farm for several years, and I can assure you that his friend Dwight never knew a Charlie Brown tree. I remember one year getting the tree myself, when we knew that our county agent Raynold Davis raised them on his place at Sunnyside.

Also, over the years, we got to know the Raihas really well. That meant learning their secrets of turning an ugly duckling aka skinny fir with limbs two feet apart into the most beautiful of creations. Part of their Christmas tradition involved plucking that ugly tree from their woods, rounding up some extra limbs, drilling holes, sticking limbs in the holes at strategic spots and ending up with a most beautiful product.

I always kept that in mind should Bill ever bring home another Charlie Brown spruce or fir. I even thought about it yesterday when we went searching for this year's tree. Our effort was part of the downsizing of our Christmas $$$$ output, and, as far as I'm concerned, the experience was like the Mastercard ad: priceless.

Doggies went with us. We enjoyed walking through a rather open but tree-filled area as doggies disappeared and reappeared on their woods bounding rounds.

One thing I noticed during our short search is that there are a lot of deceptive trees in the forest.
What looks like the most beautiful spruce or grand fir from a hundred or so feet away turns into TWO trunks ten feet away----and generally the back side of the front tree of those twin towers has limbs about six inches long because the trees have grown up too close together.

We did find a lovely tree, however. This year it will be a Hemlock, and that in itself is a first. And, no need for extra limbs.

I told Bill this morning that it's a "just right model" cuz it's not too thick and not too thin. We may have to cut off part of the bottom and top, but once it's inside, and securely standing straight in its stand, the decorating can begin.

I really enjoyed our outing yesterday, and I think we're going to have to make it an annual affair. It will be really fun when we go hunting on our own place for the annual tree. Bill figures that will be in about five or six years.

In the meantime, we've come to a place in life where Bill knows a good Christmas tree when he sees one, and my ornament collection has grown enough that I have to work hard to screw up on the decorating.