O, Christmas Tree
Dec. 14th, 2015 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aThis year, Kimberly and I have our first Christmas tree ever. I don't mean our first Christmas tree as a married couple. I mean the first Christmas tree that either of us have had since we moved away from home, to college.
I always had Christmas trees growing up, at least as far back as I remember. I mainly remember going out with Bob and my mom .. and in later years with a very little Jason ... to the mountains. We'd cut one down, strap it on the top of a car like a downed deer, and drive it home. We were rugged men. This was at a Christmas tree farm, of course.
At my dad's condo, I remember having trees that his cat used to like to climb. They'd inevitably fall over as a result. The tree and the cat both. There'd be a great crash, and then much cleaning up of glass former ornaments. Later, when he moved into a house, he got a living tree in a big plastic tub. We'd haul it into the house come Christmas time, after it had sat out in the side yard all year. It was more resistant to falling over due to roots and stuff.
At my mom's house, I mainly remember decorating the tree with Peanuts ornaments. I had one for every year starting in 1977. That one was a flat wooden one. Later ones were plastic, and a few may even have been of glass. The later ones were all a more socially acceptable spherical shape. Miraculously, I don't think we ever broke any of the glass ones. Those ornaments are still at my mom's house (see: we've never had a tree before).
At my dad's house, I don't remember any heirloom artifacts, but I do remember throwing tinsel on the tree. It got all over. Kimberly and I don't have tinsel for our tree.
Why did we get a tree this year? I dunno. It seemed celebratory, I guess, and the last few years have been tough because of Kimberly's string of health problems. But we also talked about it last year, and it sounded nice.
One long-running trouble with getting a tree was of course the lack of transportation. I know there are tree lots up Telegraph Avenue, over in Temescal. I was ready drag a cart behind my bike, with a tree strapped to it, and get it the couple of miles home that way. One of Kimberly's friends with a van volunteered instead. It was a lot easier, though possibly not as fun.
We had lights from a previous attempt to decorate the windows of our house. I also had three years worth of ornaments from Mayfair, since I've been on their Christmas list of late (including Catan resources #3-5)! So, some net-heirloom ornaments here too. And we got a bunch of crappy red-and-gold metal ones from Walgreens.
The tree looks nice.
Kimberly was encouraged to put some lights in the window, and they look nice too.
However, if past experience is an indication of future returns, we're going to picking the little plastic tabs used to hang those lights off our windows for the next five years.
And the cats, they haven't been that bad. No tree climbing. And really, we tempted them, by putting the christmas tree where the cat tree was a few weeks ago. No ornament smacking. The only problem is that Callisto keeps insisting on drinking the tree's water.
The Don't-eat-that cat has become the Don't-drink-that cat.
And that's our first Christmas tree.
I always had Christmas trees growing up, at least as far back as I remember. I mainly remember going out with Bob and my mom .. and in later years with a very little Jason ... to the mountains. We'd cut one down, strap it on the top of a car like a downed deer, and drive it home. We were rugged men. This was at a Christmas tree farm, of course.
At my dad's condo, I remember having trees that his cat used to like to climb. They'd inevitably fall over as a result. The tree and the cat both. There'd be a great crash, and then much cleaning up of glass former ornaments. Later, when he moved into a house, he got a living tree in a big plastic tub. We'd haul it into the house come Christmas time, after it had sat out in the side yard all year. It was more resistant to falling over due to roots and stuff.
At my mom's house, I mainly remember decorating the tree with Peanuts ornaments. I had one for every year starting in 1977. That one was a flat wooden one. Later ones were plastic, and a few may even have been of glass. The later ones were all a more socially acceptable spherical shape. Miraculously, I don't think we ever broke any of the glass ones. Those ornaments are still at my mom's house (see: we've never had a tree before).
At my dad's house, I don't remember any heirloom artifacts, but I do remember throwing tinsel on the tree. It got all over. Kimberly and I don't have tinsel for our tree.
Why did we get a tree this year? I dunno. It seemed celebratory, I guess, and the last few years have been tough because of Kimberly's string of health problems. But we also talked about it last year, and it sounded nice.
One long-running trouble with getting a tree was of course the lack of transportation. I know there are tree lots up Telegraph Avenue, over in Temescal. I was ready drag a cart behind my bike, with a tree strapped to it, and get it the couple of miles home that way. One of Kimberly's friends with a van volunteered instead. It was a lot easier, though possibly not as fun.
We had lights from a previous attempt to decorate the windows of our house. I also had three years worth of ornaments from Mayfair, since I've been on their Christmas list of late (including Catan resources #3-5)! So, some net-heirloom ornaments here too. And we got a bunch of crappy red-and-gold metal ones from Walgreens.
The tree looks nice.
Kimberly was encouraged to put some lights in the window, and they look nice too.
However, if past experience is an indication of future returns, we're going to picking the little plastic tabs used to hang those lights off our windows for the next five years.
And the cats, they haven't been that bad. No tree climbing. And really, we tempted them, by putting the christmas tree where the cat tree was a few weeks ago. No ornament smacking. The only problem is that Callisto keeps insisting on drinking the tree's water.
The Don't-eat-that cat has become the Don't-drink-that cat.
And that's our first Christmas tree.