Real vs. Artificial - Which Do You Choose?

I don't know about you, but I have very fond childhood memories of picking out our Christmas tree every year. We NEVER had an artificial tree. We would make our annual trip to the local tree lot or on a couple of occasions we even went to a local tree farm and chopped one down! It was great fun with all us kids (I'm one of six) running around saying, "how about this one Mom?" or "this one looks good", or "Oh, look at this one!" Eventually we would all come to a general consensus and decide on one special tree to call our own. How lovely it will look in our living room.

But then came the trick of tying in onto the roof of the car! The first Christmas miracle was managing to secure it without scratching the #%&* out the roof of your car. Remember how happy Dad was about that? And by now we were all complaining about how freaking cold we were. Let me tell you, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan can be a pretty bone chilling place this time of year. Don't believe me, just go check out the weather channel and see what the temperature is in good ol' Sault Ste Siberia today! Probably hovering somewhere around 15 degrees farenheit I bet! And that doesn't take into consideration the wind chill!


But, we'd eventually get it home safe and sound and we'd all be warmer and happier and looking forward to decorating it. We would be so excited to unpack all the familiar ornaments we hadn't seen in a year. So many of them had special meaning and stories surrounding them. Many of them were even handmade by us throughout the years and of course Mom loved those ones the most -- still does I'm sure. We'd have the Christmas music playing (Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Rose Mary Clooney, Burl Ives) while we were unpacking everything and hanging up our Santa faces (we didn't have stockings -- long story). Just imagine the energy in the room!



While we were going through boxes, it was always Dad's job to put the lights on the tree first. Like I said, imagine the energy in the room, of six excited, loud, rambunctous children ranging in age from 4 to 12 and one thirty-something man trying to string lights around a tree without falling off the ladder, stepping into a box of ornaments or stepping onto a kid for that matter. It almost makes me belly laugh now just thinking about it!

Eventually the lights would be finished and Dad would high tail it outa there and head to the sanctuary of his garage/workshop for some peace and quiet and a well-deserved beer or two and leave Mother in charge of the rest. We'd hang up so many ornaments there was not a single bare space left. Then, as was tradition in our family, we would put so much silver tinsel on the tree you could barely see any of the ornaments. And then, the moment of truth, we'd turn off all the lights and and oooh and aaah over how beautiful it looked. And from that day until the morning of December 25th the excitement in the air was palpable. We'd trudge through the next few weeks like time was standing still and the actual day would never get here. But eventually, it always did.

As you can see from the pictures, the Bailey family decorated their tree on Sunday night. No trip to the tree lot or tree farm, no scratches on the hood of the car, and no freezing our butts off. We just opened the box and put that thing together and it was still a blast going through all the boxes of ornaments, hanging up the stockings and listening to Christmas carols. The excitement is still there with Christian asking "how many more days until Christmas Mommy?"

There may come a time when he asks if we can get a "real" tree and if he does I'm sure I'll say "of course" but for now this beauty in a box works just fine and Santa comes to our house without fail. And, putting up the tree no matter what kind will always take me back to our house on Superior Street with all my brothers and sisters and my Mom and Dad and make me feel like a little kid again. I hope your tree trimming takes you back too.