Holidays are ending...

So now that the holidays are over, I must admit my house is feeling a bit empty. I finally got all the decorations taken down, and yes, my real tree got out the door before it left needles everywhere. For all of you feel that cleaning up the needles on the way out the door is a must for Christmas experience, don't worry, I did that already on round one. By round one, I mean that this was my second tree for the season. Here were the following real Christmas tree experiences that I was lucky enough to enjoy this season:
Tree #1) We headed to the "pre-cut" tree lot right across from Target on about Dec.7th. Yes, I understand that it still means I have three weeks before Christmas, but the tree was already cut anyway, so what should be the difference if it sits in a parking lot or in my dining room? Well, as luck would have it, I have very little room for a tree next to my dining room table, so I needed a tall and skinny tree, in order to be just perfect. We begin to walk through the tree assortment, and they are all very cute trees, nice and round and wide, etc. Clearly not what I wanted, so I head to the back corner and find a lovely Charlie Brown Tree..tall and skinny and sparse, like I wanted. I find the perfect tree, and I did notice a tinge of lighter green in the needles, but I assumed it was just because that tree was a different type than the others. Oh boy was I wrong...First off, I find it and it has no tag (hmmm, strange). I ask the guy if it's for sale, and he says it is, and then he gives it a "fresh cut." Well, we get it home, put all the lights on, and next thing you know, it's drinking no water. My boyfriend has never really had real trees, so he convinces me that it just doesn't drink that much and it's fine. Although I knew that my trees from childhood always drank about a 1/2 gallon a day or so, somehow I was convinced this one was just "unique". I was convinced until about five days later when I accidentally brushed it as I was vacuuming, and it rained pine needles on my head. SUMMARY ROUND ONE: I bought a dead tree, put it in my house, decorated it, swept pine needles for a week, admitted defeat, took decorations off, drug it out to the dumpster.

Tree #2) Round two began with me being overly neurotic about getting the tree in water fast enough after the "fresh cut" so that the end doesn't "sap over" before it starts to drink water (I have thought that potentially this is a cause of the first tree death, but not really true since it was still only ten minutes before it was in water). So there ends up being a place that looks like a real ghetto tree farm right across from my apartment complex that one random night had a lit sign that said "Cheap Christmas Trees." Having already bought one, I was sold with that sign, as "cheap" was a key word. However, I never saw the sign on again, nor did I ever see a soul inhabiting that muddy parking lot with trees in it. I convince Rob to come with me and check it out, but his lower back is hurting so I have to do all the driving and carrying, but he did get out of bed to come with me. So it's just short of a blizzard, and we drive over to the "tree farm" where we pull in near a little run-down trailer/outhouse and hope that someone will emerge from somewhere to help us. I see the Christmas trees that have been cut, they are under a ton of snow, but I decide to go find one while we wait for a human. One by one I proceed to pick them up from the ground, shake them off, and stand them up for Rob to judge if it's good or not. We finally find one just as a man emerges and stares at us. I figure I will have to begin the conversation after about a minute, so I say, "How much are these trees here?" A long, awkward pause and then a response, of $20. Wow, this was a good choice, I think to myself. I pay for it, and then pick it up to carry it to the car. He looks at Rob as if he's confused as to why I am doing the work, and then hesitantly offers that he can carry it because he has gloves, but then he realizes I have gloves as well and quickly revokes his offer. At any rate, we get to the truck and I ask if he has a saw to give it a fresh cut, because I have no saw. This sort of sets him back a bit, and he walks away for a minute. He returns with the rusty and flaked skeleton of what some may have previously called a hand saw. As we put the tree up on the tailgate to cut it, I realize there is a copper nail stuck in the bottom, and I'm wondering how he's gonna manage to cut that with a not-a-saw. Well, he gives it quite the valiant effort for about ten minutes, the whole time cursing his friend who "must have moved that brand new orange saw that worked great and they had just bought yesterday." Finally his patience runs out (mine had been out since two minutes into the ordeal, but I didn't dare say anything) and he goes to look for something else. Needless to say, he comes back another five minutes later with a huge metal cutter (like what they use to cut the lock off your locker in kindergarten). Sort of like the jaws of life but not quite on such a grand scale, and whammo, the bottom of my tree is pulverized, but hey, whatever works, at this point I'm already over it. Now I just have to get it home and get it in water, fast. Well, we arrive home and try to put it in the stand.
Summarized story of the stand: I went to Shopko and all they had was a giant tree stand (like heavy duty for a 12" wide tree and up to 102" tall the label said). Needless to say they had no normal stands, and so although my stand was the size of my tree, I figured what the heck, it would definitely do the job.
So we put the tree in the stand, and go figure, not even close to fitting. Well, like I mentioned before, there are two major factors operating in my frustration here: First, Rob is out of commission for doing anything because of his back and second, We don't own a saw. I realize, as these two things cross my mind, that there are about four to six good size branches that need to be cut in order for it to fit. With new found optimism I announce that we could use a Leatherman (pocket knife) saw for this, and it'll be fine. That optimism dies out about half way through the skinniest branch as my knuckles have been skinned on the bark because the handle is too short, and the branches are soggy and more than flexible because they are wet from the snow. Well, long story short (or not so much because it's already long), about forty minutes later and about double that many curse words later, I rise victorious from the carpet with bleeding knuckles and a tree that is now only about three feet tall.

In the end, the tree was perfect, lovely, drank tons of water, and barely even lost a needle. Ghetto tree farm gave me a very lovely and perfect "cheap christmas tree," Next year they'll just have to remember to actually have the saw that they love to talk about, and NOTE TO SELF: trees without sale tags and lighter green/brown needles are most likely dead, don't buy them.