Trees

We've gotten our Christmas trees from all sorts of places, tree farms, tree lots, cut from mountain tops,  taken a horse drawn sled to pick one from a make shift building, we even tried buying a live tree and decorating outside in our basement apartment window well so we could reuse it and eventually plant it, in the end we've decided as long as it's real and not shaped by man, we're happy.  Most of the time it is all about our schedule, what we have time for during this busy holiday month.

My children are always so excited about decorating the tree, they are amazing little helpers, but as the night grows darker, the lightweights start dropping like flies, and opt for a cozy spot by the fire instead.  In the end it was just Jo and I left to finish with the last ornaments.

Didn't I just write something about this?

Our first Christmas tree was really just a branch, we weren't married yet, so it sat propped in the corner of Monte's apartment, dressed with the one strand of lights I'd donated.  Our ornaments were appropriate on a ski bum-student salary, we'd cut them from newspapers and cereal boxes pulled from cupboards, and no tree is complete without a tin foil star.

Yep, I kept and framed them, my favorite is the Quaker guy, or maybe the pink rhino, let's call it a draw.

 I thought with my husbands overly infatuation with trees he might not be into killing a tree every year for Christmas, but I learned years ago the difference between a conservationist and a environmentalist.  Monte's a conservationist, he's fine cutting down trees, as long as it's controlled  and we plant new ones in their place, which he does, by the hundreds every year.  I stopped counting the number of times he's come home with a large tree in the back of the truck, being a forestor has its perks, he gets great deals on some ruff looking trees that he knows he can nurse back to health.  Other times it's not the trees but their seed that I find by the handfuls, in his pockets, or as a gift he's left on the kitchen table.  Jars and jars of all different kinds of acorns adorn shelves in my house, same can be said about pine cones, makes me wonder a bit what he really does when he goes to work. 

Took this picture a while ago,  a sweet tiny gift, thought I'd better take a picture before the kids discovered it.

  I know which areas in my flower beds I'm not to weed, he's terrified I'll pull his tiny oak trees he planted from acorns months or years prior.  He tells me the scientific names of all the trees when we walk, ride, or hike, then quizzes me on them later...... Gleditsia  Triacanthos, honey locust, got that one, just don't ask for anymore it's a crazy language.  He knows all the trees on city property that have fruit to share, the location of the oldest oak tree in the state, and has found a secret grove of trees that change the most amazing color in the fall.  He is constantly pulling different berries from trees and bushes to eat while on mountain hikes, despite my continuing lecture that although he may know the difference between edible and non edible, the children do not.  In the end I've benefited so much from his passion, some women get flowers from their husbands, and although  flowers are great, I'm real lucky and I get entire trees.