This is our first year ever to have a live tree! First year ever for both hubby and myself. I've been saying it ever since we got back to the midwest and had room in our home for a nice big tree that I wanted a real one. Last summer I found a tree stand at a yard sale for a live tree and felt like it was time. Plus, our artificial is on it's last leg. Literally.
A family at our preschool owns a beautiful farm that grows Christmas trees. We walk around in fields of trees and picked out the perfect one! Hubby has good eyes and spotted the very best one in the whole farm. (in photo- Bee gathered corn to take home to play with as we walked along the edge of a corn field) I had to touch each one. I didn't want a pokey one.
Then we took the farm guy out to show him which one we wanted. Really, he took us out. He pulled us on a 4-wheeler.
The farm dog helped out.
It took him about 2 seconds to cut down for us. We saw another family who brought their own chainsaw. I guess we came unprepared.
Then he shook it for us.
And wrapped it up.
and loaded it in the van for us while we played in the hay loft.
I did a little research at home, since this was our first live tree. They drink up to a quart of water a day and I was seeing the watering process as a messy, tricky project. Here's what I read about at various places. Insert the tube attachment from the vacuum cleaner along the trunk down into the watering well. Attach a funnel to the top for easier watering. Luckily my attachment is black and we had a green funnel in the sandbox. You really cant see it, especially with lights and ornaments.
Turns out that setting up the live tree was easier and cleaner than setting up our artificial! I don't know if we'll ever go back! That and the charcoal grill. Never going back.
I have never had a live tree in my own house, for a lot of reasons, and sometimes, I do miss the real tree. But I feel like the mess at the end, all of those dead needles, is such a pain. But, setting up and taking down the fake one is never a joy either. I think you can't win either way! My parents have always had a real one and for MANY years, it was so real, it had the root ball for planting later. We have a lot of them on the property now. These days, my parents get a cut one. It is nice to walk in and smell the tree. But it is nice not to have to water or worry about if it's too close to the heat. I remember our cats always wanting to drink the water from the base of the tree, like it tasted so much better than from their bowl! And we only have one cat actually climb the tree, that I can remember.
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