Wie treu sind deine Blätter

Those aren't my ugly drapes.


We've had our tree for a couple of weeks already. We got it one Wednesday after work, rushing before we'd be in complete darkness. This year, we decided to go to a cut-your-own farm (see my "going local" post below). Now, when you're in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around except evergreens of every size you could imagine, it's hard to put things into perspective. Things like the width of your front door. Are you kidding?! of course we didn't bring a tape measure. Hah! All we brought (I should say, all I brought, because Aaron was a bit more skeptical) was the knowledge that we finally had our own house with pretty high ceilings and we were going to do it up right for our First Christmas.


And so we walked around, examining each tree, finding it's flaw. A bare spot, a flat side, a crooked top, etc. We find one that looks good, then wonder: will it be big enough? Will it fill that void in my soul that our crappy Boston, 1/2 dead, apartment-sized trees didn't? I wasn't so sure, but whatever. It was getting late, I was getting cold, and we had to cut this puppy down with our bare hands (or a saw, whatever, it's still hard). So we just decided to go for it. So it wouldn't be the biggest tree ever. That's ok, there is always next year.


Cut to the part where we are getting it in the house: oh, what's that you say, you can't fit your end through the door? It's too fat? Oh my. Perhaps we were under estimating. A gentle push popped the thing through and we realized then exactly how much we had under estimated: this tree is huge. It is tall (7 1/2 feet at least) and way way fat (5 feet fat?). It takes up 1/2 of our living room. It's a really good thing that we don't have any furniture because it wouldn't have fit. It's huge and beautiful and it's totally filling the void.



So, after getting it into the stand (and now that we have a special spring loaded stand imported from Bavaria it took under 2 minutes, whereas all my life before I would be the one crouched at the bottom screwing, screwing for what felt like days while Aaron or my mom would hold it straight) we made ourselves some hot cocoa and started the decorating process.


This is the third year that we've used a combination of Red and White lights. The first year we lived together we couldn't decide whether we wanted fun color lights or elegant white lights, so we decided that this was a good solution. So far, it hasn't done us wrong. Plus, with the red star at the top from all of my childhood Christmas trees, it just feels right.


And you know how it goes: with each ornament comes a memory. The Kermit on the sled from when I was little, the red ceramic heart I got for Aaron just before going into the Opera House in Vienna, that time we went to the Christmas thing at Orchard House, buying everyone corn husk angels in the Christmas market in Prague and then giving them to no one but myself. The pink CareBear reminds me of the miniature tree my mom got when I was around 3-4 years old so that I would have something to decorate without handling her extremely fragile heirlooms.


So, for our first Christmas Tree in our new life and our new home, I would say we picked a memorable one. We'll probably remember the tape measure next year.