Oh Tannenbaum!

Taking a break in the hustle and bustle of cooking and wrapping and last minute primping to write about our wonderful tree. This is a Concolor Fir. It has a fragrance that is a blend of balsam and citrus. Very fresh! The soft 1" needles are green on top and blue on the bottom. It is a gorgeous tree.

After the tree farm closed for the season, Molly and I went looking for a tree. They are all so pretty, so we decided to choose one that was all alone - meaning that it would have to be cut down anyway to make way for new planting or some other enterprise. We found this one. In the field, it appeared to be "typical" in height - around 7 feet.

HAH! Bob cut off about a foot from the bottom, and you can see that it is still scraping the ceiling. The angel is fastened onto the front of the top bough because she would have been mashed into the tree, otherwise. Now it didn't dawn on me until yesterday that the size of the tree makes a big difference in what is needed to decorate it. For the last 15-20 years, our trees have been smallish. 5' is plenty for me, but Molly wanted something bigger this year. We are only half done in this picture. Our smallish, handmade decorations are dwarfed by this tree! They disappear into the branches, and the tree - although heavily festooned - is in desperate need of some glitz. We went into the basement and found some of Mom's old decorations. She was the queen of gaudy when it came to the holidays. We added them this morning, and it helped.... some.

Tonight the table beside the tree will be covered with the buffet that we will share. I'm sneaking some chickweed pesto into the mix, but won't tell them until AFTER they eat it. I know they'll like it. We'll talk and laugh about things that are happening in our lives now, things that happened in the past, and at some point I'm sure we'll talk about how much we miss Mom. We always do. It seems, though, that the older we get, the more laughter there is. I'm thankful for that.

I'm an equal opportunity celebrater. It doesn't matter WHOSE holiday it is, I'm always game to celebrate. So on that note, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy holiday season, and a very happy and prosperous new year.