Bringin' It Indoors

We are putting up our tree today- Hooray! That means 'getting it out of the closet upstairs'. Yes, we have an artificial tree. We found a skinny Martha Stewart one that fits our room perfectly. It is pre-lit and alleviates a lot of problems, from watering the tree and spilling and leaking, to tangled malfunctioning lights (we have plenty of those outdoors), and the disposal of the tree afterwards and the proper cleaning out and storing of the tree stand. One time when we lived in Woodland, I think the yucky tree stand stood out on the porch for months. It was inexcusable and I have no idea why it happened but we always seem to have some type of a stumbling block with getting that tree stand put away. We are just not great finishers on those extra things. We also have one of those scary wall heaters that look like they could dry out a tree just like that and I don't need the worry that our tree will be a fire hazard. It has actually enhanced our Christmases the last few years by making it a little easier to get all of the trimmings out. I actually love my fake tree.

Don't get me wrong. I love fresh cut. We used to get tree cutting permits every year and go up the 503 towards Cougar and cut ours right out of the woods and bring home, it was awesome. I have a great memory of when we did this in my '69 VW bug, and it was right after the roof rack blew off the top of the car going down the I-5 (!), so the only way we could secure the tree was to close the doors and tie it down to the top of the car and pass the rope though the windows. when we were done, thinking we were so clever, it suddenly dawned on us that we couldn't open the car doors. So in the 30-degree snow, we had to climb into the bug throught the windows Dukes-of-Hazzard style and drive like that about 30 miles home! Good times.