But since we are into December I thought I would share our first experience picking out and decorating our first live tree. Last year our artificial one bit the dust and the new one that I want is currently out of our budget so we decided to grab a real one and buy a new artificial one after Christmas. I was pretty excited even though I planned on the real tree being a one time thing I thought it would be something super neat for the kids to participate in. We found a tree farm in our area and planned on making a Sunday afternoon of it but things got a little hectic so we ended up tree shopping on Monday....the tree farm was closed but that didn't stop us.......... onto driving up and down the road checking out the tree "farms" located in huge concrete parking lots. Hey with four boys improvising is key!!! I was a little put off by the prices I mean it is a tree and since I wanted a Fraser Fir it was also a tree that could not be replanted here. We finally found a super nice gentleman on the side of Maynardville Hwy/Broadway between Halls and Fountain City, he was set up next to a karate place. I tell you this so if you're local and still need a tree you can check him out. His lot was less fancy then some but his trees were the most beautiful and his prices were great!!! Picking out the tree was a family affair as we all pointed out what we did and didn't like. Finally we found it......
You'll have to excuse Weston he was having a small meltdown well okay a large meltdown because our tree didn't have a blue tag at the top. FYI the blue tagged trees were 9-10 ft so not a possibility.
We got it home!! It's then that we realized the tree was beautiful but had looked much smaller at the tree lot;-)
Now it was time to put the lights on, I had 800 so surely we would have enough... honestly it was close but we managed. Here's the thing about putting lights on a tree thanks to not only the convenience of artificial trees but also the pre-lite ones we were a bit spoiled. The lights started out a little rough especially with me giving instructions of a lighting technique I found on pinterest http://pinterest.com/pin/180707003769809322/ and not understanding why my Hubby just couldn't do it as easy as the link showed. In the end it all worked out and it didn't turn out too bad, we were pretty proud!!
The kids had a blast decorating....we did learn that the real tree is a little less sturdy;-) Weston's 10 ornaments clumped together on the edges of three branches threatened to do us in.
The finished product turned out great and the smell is wonderful....for some reason the real tree just makes it feel more like Christmas!! This is a tradition we will be continuing and one I urge everyone to try just once if possible:-)
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