This is the first year that we've ever had a live Christmas tree. I'm looking forward to the apartment smelling like a pine forest :)
I saw a flyer last week from the Cal Forestry Club at the university here in Berkeley. They have an annual Christmas tree sale on campus and I thought this would be a great place to buy our tree. Each year members of the Cal Forestry Club visit the Sierra Nevada and handpick firs and cedars to become Christmas trees. The trees are harvested sustainably so there's no need to feel guilty about a tree being cut down just to sit in the corner of the lounge room for a month. The trees chosen are ones that would most likely not live to grow much larger. That's not to say that the trees are unhealthy, they are just generally growing in quite crowded locations where they have to fight for sunlight and nutrients. By cutting down selected trees the remaining trees have a better chance of flourishing. There, now I feel better about it :)
While there were no signs posted at the university, the Christmas tree sale was pretty easy to find if you just followed your nose. The scent of fir and cedar trees led us to the right spot.
There were so many beautiful trees to choose from. We had to stick to buying a relatively small tree due to the space constraints of living in an apartment. Plus the tree needed to be small enough to put up on a table should Lola decide to play with it. An inevitability, I'm sure.
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| Ava and Lola checking out the trees |
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| Hmm, that's a nice tree Ava but a little bigger than we planned to buy |
Ava chose a beautiful 3 foot fir tree. At only $6.00 per foot our Christmas tree was a bargain.
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| Ava shows me the tree she has chosen |
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| Carrying the tree back to pay for it |
The girl who helped us out showed Ava how to work out the age of our tree - apparently it's about 12 years old. She also let Ava help measure our tree and a few others and gave Ava the biggest pine cone I've ever seen. Apparently it's from a sugar pine. Sitting on the ground the pine cone looks like a hedgehog!
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| Ava helps to measure our tree |
Getting our tree home was another consideration when it came to the size. Our little tree fit perfectly on Ava's skateboard attached to the back of the pram.
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| Ava, Lola and our tree |
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| Walking home with the tree on the pram! |
Here's our lovely little Christmas tree in our lounge room, waiting for decorations.
Ava added a few glittery pinecones that she decorated at preschool on Friday.
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| Ava hangs her pinecone decorations on our little tree. Under the tree is the giant pinecone. |
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| Glittery pinecone |
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| Another glittery pinecone |
Tomorrow's advent voucher might help out with the rest of the decorations :)
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