O Christmas Tree

Things were obviously a little different for us this Christmas. We wouldn’t be driving up to my parents’ house. We wouldn’t be flying to Reno to see Andrew’s parents (or having them fly to Wisconsin). This is the first Christmas I have ever NOT been with family. Last year was probably Andrew’s first year away from family, since he was at basic training. I was really worried that I was going to be really depressed around the holidays. But I was a woman on a mission: I was not going to let distance bring me down! I was going to have a fabulous Christmas no matter what!

First thing on my list? A Christmas tree. I feel like the majority of people now have an artificial tree they put up every year. My family has always had a real tree, from what I can remember. I know there were a few early years that we just had a little fake tree, but I think that’s because we usually went to Michigan for the actual holiday.

Yep, that’s me on the right. Cute, huh? 🙂

We left the artificial tree I had gotten in college back in Wisconsin to be put in storage. We wanted to start off our marriage (and our first Christmas as a married couple) with a real tree! When I asked around back in October, a lot of local people didn’t know where to get a real tree from. I was a little shocked! But after I looked around online, I found a nearby tree farm that sounded pretty good.

The prices were higher than I was expecting, but they were also in GBP. No matter. We still searched high and low for the perfect tree! Andrew wished they weren’t pre-cut, but he did manage to find one that he liked.

Did I mention that I’m a perfectionist? Well, so is Andrew. I fear for our future children… Anyway, he was very picky about the tree we got. I was a lot more easygoing about the whole thing, so I eventually  just left the decision up to him. I knew I would never hear the end of it if I picked out an asymmetrical tree! And it had to have “soft” branches. Andrew knew he was in charge of putting on the lights, and he didn’t want battle wounds from poky tree branches. We really were happy with this tree — no complaints!

My favorite part of this tree farm? They had Newfoundland dogs there to pull your tree to your car in a wagon. It was free, although they were taking donations to raise money for either Dog Trust or just a Newfie rescue group, I think. We were happy to donate! Our dog was named Lucy. She was so pretty! Her handler (I assume he is also her owner) was so nice, and he insisted on taking pictures of us with her!

We had such a great time at the Elveden tree farm! I’m sure we will go back there next year too. There is also a large store next to the tree farm that sells local meats, cheeses, wines, mead (and more!), and it has a restaurant too. It’s not cheap, but we couldn’t resist picking up some meat to grill and some mead!

Next step was decorating the tree. The least expensive lights we could find for the tree (since we needed ones with UK plugs) were strands of 100 with no connecting plugs! So poor Andrew ended up string 1200 lights on our tree with numerous power strips. Our tree looked nice from the front, but there were 12 cords streaming out from the back, haha! All we could really do was laugh at that point.

I loved decorating our first tree, and I’m so happy with how it looked! It’s nearly the end of January now, and we are planning to take out the tree this weekend. I’m already excited to do it all again in 10 months! 🙂