O Tannenbaum: Version 10.0

 

This year marks my 10th married Christmas with Mark, and on our way to pick our tree last week, we reminisced about some of the adventures and mishaps we've shared over the last decade of choosing Christmas trees together.  Here are some highlights:

 

Year 1 (2003): Living in a tiny 3rd floor apartment near Boston, MA, we chose a tree that was waaaayy too big for our small space.  We could barely fit the monstrosity in the elevator in the apartment building and reenacted a scene from a "Friends" episode as we tried to navigate it through tight interior corners and hallways, shouting "PIVOT!"  I was so intent on having our first matrimonial Christmas tree be perfect, and wasn't prepared for the knobby trunk that we tried to jam into the tree stand, my frustration as we futilely attempted to hack off bottom branches with our Miracle Blade knife (b/c as 20-something year-old "urbanites", we didn't own a saw), and the resulting sappy, sticky hands, clothes, and hair.  We were so exhausted and fed up with the whole process that I believe the words, "YOU ARE RUINING CHRISTMAS!" were shouted... at the tree, of course, and not at each other as happy newlyweds, right?

 

Year 2 (2004):  We moved into our first house, an adorable, charming Cape Cod in Roanoke, VA this year.   We drove with our new puppy, Winnie, (and our new saw!) to a Christmas tree farm (in nearby rural southwest Virginia), where we cut down our own tree.  Learning from the mistake of Year 1, we chose a much smaller tree for our second Christmas together.  This ended up being was a good decision, since we apparently parked miles from the field where we actually found our tree, and had to lug it through acres of woods to get back to the car.  When we got home, we realized that the tree was so small that we actually needed to place it on a (covered) milk-crate to be large enough to be at eye level.  "Charlie" was our first named tree, after his puny Charlie Brown-tree stature.     

 

Years 3-4 (2005-2006):  We spent two more, blissful, idyllic Christmases in our Roanoke house, and continued our tradition of naming our trees.  One of these years we dubbed our tree, "Caesar", because we stopped at Little Caesar's for carry-out pizza on the way home (I think that's the only time we've eaten that pizza in the 14 years that we've known each other).  Getting smarter each year, we learned that after spending the day finding and bringing home a tree and then adorning it with ornaments and lights, that the last thing we wanted to do was cook dinner.  Cheap pizza never tasted better!  "Douglas" was another name of one of our Roanoke trees, because he was a Douglas fir (original, I know).      

 

Year 5 (2007):  Pregnant with Luke, and in our new house in South Carolina, we enjoyed the new freedom we had in choosing a larger tree for our 2-story tall great room.  Up until this point, our Christmas tree was decorated each year solely with ornaments that Mark and I received each year of our childhoods and adolescent years.  We realized that the next Christmas we would be starting our own family tradition as we would buy our first ornament for our baby's collection!  We received a very special gift this Christmas of a homemade tree skirt sewn by my mom, which looked wonderful on "Frasier", our first North Carolina Frasier fir.    

 

Year 6 (2008):  We overdid everything this year, to commemorate Baby's First Christmas.  "Goliath" was over 12 feet tall, had 1400 white lights (I think it required 2 trips to the store to buy more!), and was colossal.  A step ladder was required to decorate the top 1/3 of the tree, as well as creative reaching from our second story catwalk balcony to hang the star on the top branch. 

 

Year 7 (2009):  As busy parents of an active toddler we decided to take a short-cut this year, and chose an average-sized, modestly-priced tree out of our grocery store parking lot, which was 1/2 mile from our house.  Oh, the ease and convenience of this mediocrity was wonderful (and guilt-free, since we were too tired to care!).  However, we narrowly avoided disaster as Mark momentarily forgot that "Bloom" (named after the grocery store) was tied to the roof of our SUV and he tried to pull the Jeep into our garage.  We chuckle about it now, but it almost wasn't very funny at all!

 

Year 8 (2010): We barely had our tree inside and in the tree stand for 30 seconds when our wild 2-year old ran at it with full force and knocked it over completely.  We emerged unscathed and were thankful that there were no ornament casualties or damage to our furniture.  We spent this Christmas thinking that Leah would arrive any moment.  Due to my hazy pregnancy brain at the time, I don't think we named our tree, but it might as well have been named "Carrie" (as I think I was the same size as the tree at 38 weeks pregnant with a 9 + pound baby in my very round belly). 

 

Year 9 (2011): This year was Leah's first Christmas, and our fifth tree for our Greenville home.  At this point in our tree-decorating, each tradition was familiar and established.  Mommy always did the lights, Daddy knew just what angle was perfect to fit the tree through the back door, and Luke served as a very helpful big brother to hang up his baby sister's first Christmas ornament, along with his own special growing collection. 

 

Year 10 (2012): But out of all of these stories and memories created during our past decade of Christmas tree adventures, this year has been the best by far.  Luke remembers many of our past Christmas traditions regarding our tree, and Leah is old enough to be an active part of the tree-decorating process.  She and Luke were adorable this year, and were giddy with anticipation on the day that we chose our tree.  They helped us select the perfect tree, oohed and ahhed over each ornament, and if you look at our tree closely in person, you may see clumps of ornaments at about the 3-foot level, which has been "redecorated" several times by eager helpers:

 

 

Leah was happy to direct her brother as to the exact placement of several of the ornaments:

Each child took their job very seriously and they were darling little tree decorators:

 

 



No ladders were needed this year, as our elves could reach even the highest branches while perched on Daddy's shoulders:

 

Our sweet reindeer, Winnie, was a great supervisor of the tree-decorating process as well (and a great sport to don her antlers!):

The cuteness was overwhelming, and we enjoyed watching our sweets take such pride in decorating their tree this year.  We don't have a name for this tree yet, and are accepting submissions from our blog readers in the "Comments" section.  Here's one last look:

 

 

10 Christmas trees and counting, and we know that the best is yet to come!