So I did something on Sunday I don’t believe I’ve ever done before: cut a fresh Christmas tree. We’d dug small trees and replanted them, decades ago when we had real trees. But I don’t believe I had ever cut one, even as a child.
Sunday was a much better day than Saturday as it had rained all day on Saturday. We’d planned to do it then. It was a little windy, but it wasn’t terribly cold.
My friend and I had agreed that if I couldn’t have a tree this year (bed in living room) she would. And if I could, she wouldn’t; she’d come enjoy mine. So, the bed is not leaving anytime soon, so it was to be hers.
She had come to this tree farm near her, Four Corners Farm, for many years. She likes Fraser firs because she uses real candles on her trees. So she told me what I had to look for because there were both Frasers and balsams mixed up in the field.
She also has space limitations, so we would be measuring height and width in addition to looking for wide spaced tips and variety. We finally settled on this little tree and she did most of the cutting.
We took it to the checkout area and the man said we’d found a nice little balsam! LOL But we were happy with it, so we loaded it into the back seat of the car and went home.
One of my contributions to the day’s festivities was making eggnog. I had found her a mug that said “Cut Your Tree” on it and a red one for me for our eggnog. We used the Sidehill cream, organic sugar, vanilla, my eggs, and she had fresh ground nutmeg for on top!
I’d never had fresh ground nutmeg and the scent was so delicious!
She had one of the beautiful L. L. Bean Christmas tree stands. In the center of it is a little cone for stabilizing the tree trunk. So we would have to drill a similar cone in the base of the truck. So we left the tree outside on the porch on the table.
When we’d gotten the eggnog made, we went out to do the tree. It was gone! She’s on the second floor, and at first we thought the wind had blown it to the ground. But we didn’t see it down there.
Then we looked to the side and there it was! The wind had blown it over onto the porch roof! Marianna is much lighter than I so she crept out on the roof and rescued it.
Once we had the drill bit moving forward (it was a reversing drill) things went very quickly. She was using her dining room table as a base and we soon had the tree up nice and straight.
She has a wondrous collection of ornaments and she dragged out all her boxes and we proceeded to trash her dining room.
We took a break late morning and watched a Christmas movie. I had brought a few from my collection. This one was If You Believe. We’d made more eggnog and ate shortbreads. She’d made some luscious cranberry-orange ones.
She had always found putting lights on very frustrating, so I did that part. We had the white bulbs on the top 3rd, used blue and purple for the tier around the truck all the way down. I also used blue for the 2nd tier about ⅓ of the way down. Then we had to go to multi-colored strings. We had just enough to reach the bottom with 3 tiers per level.
We put her old brightly colored ornaments on the top with the white lights first. Then we got the real candles on. I’d never done that before. You need to place them so nothing is above them, and so they will remain upright. Her holders had little ball bearings in them, so you could tilt them to make the candle straight.
Halfway through we stopped for a lunch of lentil soup with yogurt, oven fried parsnips from my garden, goat gouda cheese and rice crackers, and fresh grapes. While we ate, we watched another movie, Mrs. Miracle this time.
Then we put all her glass icicles on. She had 3 different sizes. And lastly we put up all the decorations she or I wanted on the tree this year. By no means were they all of them!
She had a red tree skirt and a few presents she put under the tree, and it was done.
We decided to light the candles, so she turned the lights off in the house.
With all the candles and lights on, house lights off
With house lights
No house lights, just the candles
We played Christmas music and she had a CD of Maryland Christmas music she played. There was a funny song about a man wanting Maryland crabs for Christmas because he lived in Texas.
I helped pick up a little but then my husband was there to bring me home to a Corned Beef and Cabbage supper he made. So I had a wonderful day with my friend, and we got to do a lot of Christmasy things that we both love to do.