I realize the photo below is very blurry so if you can't tell, it is Alex with a VERY grumpy face carrying our freshly cut Christmas tree on his back, in the dark, with a Santa hat on. Oh, and I am driving along side of him, hence the blurry picture.
Yes, we got our Christmas tree last night! But note the key word *night* which made our typical "Griswold" style tree cutting adventure pretty complicated...
So in order to tell this story I had to start with THAT photo, but let's back up to earlier in the day. We set out around 3:30pm to get a tree which was much later than when we went in 2010 or 2011. Alex had to attend a cyclocross race earlier in the day and I had a lot of other projects I was trying to finish up. We knew we would be cutting it close for daylight time but we figured we'd be alright.
We arrived at Rum River tree farm just before 4:30, which was their closing time (we know why now). We wasted a little bit of time taking goofy photos since that has been a part of this tradition of ours. We've always compared our Tree cutting adventure to the Griswold's from National Lampoon's Christmas vacation, Alex thought he'd just do his best Clark Griswold impression...
Ahhhh my very own "Sparky"!
I couldn't come up with a character so I just did the red & white thing with some wedge heel boots of course- and yea that wasn't the best idea. I tried my best to not break an ankle or fall over on the saw blade which lead to Alex's favorite photo of the day....
Since we've had a pretty dry year lots of the trees were brown and icky. We circled around the entire tree farm in search of a nice tall tree as the sun started to go down.
It had to be minutes after the sun disappeared that we found our tree which ended up being a Colorado Blue Spruce. Feeling pressed for time, Alex gave a nice crazy face fitting of Clark W. Griswold and began cutting down our tree.
As you might imagine, cutting a tree down in the dark isn't easy. Alex and I couldn't really see much at all other than when I took a picture with a flash. I was pretty pumped when I found that I captured these funny faces on Alex, hehe!
Anyway, after about 5 minutes of Alex saying, "I can't see what I'm sawing, is the tree wobbling yet? It's so prickly under here, is it tipping over yet?" , the tree finally tipped over THANK GOODNESS!
Once we dragged the tree over to the car we found that we had a new problem- we had no way of getting it up to the front of the tree farm. Usually we have a bike rack on top of our car that a tree could balance on until getting it baled but Alex had taken it off a couple weeks earlier. We tried to balance it on the trunk and even in the trunk but no luck (remember we were able to bring a tree to plant home in our trunk before).
So, out in the dark and in the middle of a big ol' tree farm, Alex hoisted the prickly tree on his back and shoulders and walked it up to the front. I drove behind and along side him as he walked to give him some light... and take a couple photos (which all ended up blurry). The distance ended up being around 500 yards. Boy OH boy was Alex grumpy when he finally reached the baling station.
In the end, our tree adventure wasn't as fun as it had been before but we made it home with our tree!!!!
I can't wait to decorate it!!!
I've been finishing up a few other projects (that I will share tomorrow) so it has been a tease having a undecorated tree in our living room today. I hope to get started on it soon so I can share our 2012 Christmas tree!!!! (click here to see our 2011 tree)
How about you? Is your tree decorated? Did you cut one down "Griswold Style" too?
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LOL! I love the Griswolds! You did a fine job re-living their adventure. Clark should have had Alex's tie:)
ReplyDeletePS: Can't wait to see the decos:)
LOL, making memories! And he is so cute, grumpy or not. Quite the trooper to cut a tree down in the dark and then carry it on his back!! And you are adorable, such a cute couple. Can't wait to see the tree decorated.
ReplyDeleteWe will be posting the pics hopefully tonight!
DeleteLast year, after hours of hunting the acres of trees at a tree farm, we cut down and then dragged our tree up a muddy hill. Once we got to the little shack and indulged in the cookies, hot cider and a lovely woodstove we became totally embarrassed. The old farmer pointed at a sign that said “CASH ONLY”. We were $4.35 short. The old farmer sent us off with directions to find the nearest place to get cash. Which was about 12 miles away at a little country store. The store required us to purchase something with our debit card and then we could get cash back. The whole thing still makes us laugh. Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteLOL! Love the story! Thanks for sharing, I read it to my hubby and we both got a laugh :)
DeleteThe tree is up, the lights are on it and the ornaments are sitting on the counter. I feel a little nervous about putting my nice ornaments on a tree with a pup in the house, a co-worker told me to use milk bones as ornaments and teach the dog to leave the tree alone. We had a very uneventful trip to get our tree, it was dark but they have tons of lights (like football stadium lights) up so it wasn't really that dark.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Milkbones on a tree would make them think that ornaments are like treats? Hmmm, our pups don't mess with our tree at all thankfully! They don't seem interested in it after giving it a sniff when we brought it in, good luck!
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