Prologue

Everything ran late this year.  We had activities every evening during the week with the kids.  Work routine had recently changed leaving me to arrive home later in the evening.  We had weekend guests.  By the time we got a moment to go for the tree, it was just before Christmas.  But our tradition of going to King Trees paid off again.  We headed out on a nice afternoon following several days of nasty weather.  I decided not to tempt fate with a cross-country route.  The battery on the Jeep had gone flat from disuse so this was no time to be stuck in the woods with a vehicle that would not start.

 

Trail

We drove up to King Trees on the highway.  All year I had been eyeing the tree I wanted as I drove past the field.  It was there, looked great.  Of course I had not been past in a couple weeks so could not know for sure that the tree would still be there this late in the season.  We drove in - I think they may have even recognized us - and were waved through without the usual questions about whether we needed a saw (we have two in the Jeep all the time) and if we needed directions (we do not).  The road had been set up to be one way so that people coming out would not interfere with people coming in.  This was nice and gave us an opportunity to see a different part of the property, complete with some vintage tractors and other farm implements.

We drove up to our preferred field and found "the tree" was still there.  After a few minutes taken to make sure it was as good a choice in person as it was from 300 yards away, seen while passing at 75mph, I set to cutting it down.

If you go back to previous years you will notice I wore the same clothing.  This is not some superstitious "lucky rabbit foot" behavior.  It's just that the trees have sharp spines .  They're difficult to handle unless you wear protective clothing.  The heavy denim jacket and work gloves made me immune to the spines and made the work go much more smoothly.  In fact I didn't even realize how nicely I had treated myself until later when I got home and tried to handle the tree without gloves and jacket...

Tom asked if we could get him and Ted and tree to decorate so we turned him loose to go find one.  Soon he took us to this tree, which we cut down and loaded with the large tree.

The large tree was a real beast to load onto the rack.  In fact I over-exerted myself and entertained back pain for several days...

 

Epilogue

The trip to cut the trees isn't really what this is all about.  As many people know, it's all about decorating the tree, enjoying it in the house during the Christmas season, and the activities that surround the tree (literally).

Once we got the trees home, I cut the bottoms straight so the trees would be straight in stands.  The smaller tree benefited from drilling a hole in to center the pin in the tree stand and help enable the tree to stay straight in the stand.  The larger tree (all ten feet of it) simply required me to center it in the stand with the retaining screws evenly pressed around the trunk of the tree.  I brought the trees into the house and stood them up in their respective locations.

After a day of unrelated activities we decorated the trees.  Actually we put the lights on one night and decorated the trees after work the next day.

It's quite a large task to decorate a ten-foot tall tree.  It always amazes me how many ornaments it takes to make the tree look complete.  More back pain...

Enjoyment of the tree is not limited to just the humans.  The cats immediately investigated the trees.  I applied the wisdom learned from having small children in the house and hung all the unbreakable ornaments low on the tree where they would suffer any intense interest from the cats.  Cleo, the 20-something matron of the cats, simply relished the velvet tree skirt.  She didn't touch the ornaments probably because she learned years ago not to mess with them.

Cuppy, on the other hand wasted no time in climbing the tree, playing with the ornaments, eating the tinsel, and in every way possible, "interacting" with the tree...

On Christmas eve we gathered around the tree but not before having dinner.  Maria and Edward set the table and took some pictures.

 

After dinner we opened a few presents.

Cuppy had a great time with the wrapping paper!