December 17th, 2007 - Maggie’s first Christmas tree
On Saturday, we bought our Christmas tree, at Schroeder’s Forevergreens. They are a local tree farm! They even sell Concolor Firs, my absolute favorite tree, but they only had had 5 and they were all gone. I fell in love with this tree in PA when Mom and I picked one out ne of first years there, but have never had one of my own. Well, this is only the second tree we’ve ever had–the only other one was a Norfolk Island Pine Eric and I had our first year in Oshkosh (I do not recall whether that was our first year, or our first married year, to be honest). It died before we moved to the new house, however. (Schroeder’s won best tree in the state for a Concolor this year. They move on to a national competition, and the winner provides a tree for the White House.)
We got a balsam fir, about 7″ tall, for $40. Plus a $5 tip for the lady who assisted us. Can you believe they spend the entire day outside???
Eric chopped off the bottom and some branches and it’s up in the living room where the brown chair usually is (for those who have visited us). We put up the lights Saturday night, and plan to decorate it tonight or tomorrow. She adored the tree, but didn’t quite know what to make of it with the lights on. She said it was very pretty when she saw it Sunday morning, but wouldn’t go near it.
She loved playing with a couple bits of branches that came off. She spent an hour “cooking” with them. Then she tried to feed needles to Jedi which is a definite no-no! (Pets shouldn’t eat needles as they can puncture intestines. Hopefully that’s not true for humans because she also tried eating some of them.) So the branches went into the compost bin, although there are still plenty of needles lying around. Thankfully, the cats have not (yet) tried to climb it, although Pi tried to eat it and Sith tried to attack it (the branch moved and scared the hell out of him and he ran off LOL). The branches are quite close together horizontally and needles go almost to the trunk, so there isn’t really room for them to try to climb up. Cats climbing up and/or knocking it over was my biggest fear with the tree!