Christmas Tree Hunting

Yesterday we finally got our Christmas tree!

Ava and Lola had been hanging out all month to get a Christmas tree but knew they had to wait until it appeared in the advent calendar. Well, day 15 was finally the day.

Day 15: Time to choose a Christmas tree!

For the first time ever we visited a Christmas tree farm and cut down our own tree. We hired a Zipcar and headed an hour north to Reindeer Ridge Christmas Tree Farm in Sebastopol. It was a cold, grey and rainy day but that didn't dampen our spirits. No pun intended! The weather combined with the beautiful trees made for an atmospheric location. Very Wintry indeed. All we needed was snow!

Hunting trees

Armed with a tree saw and tree cart we set out to choose the perfect tree for our apartment. Last year we had a real tree for the first time. I had chosen a pretty small tree as our apartment was empty at the time and I wasn't sure how much space we'd have left over once our furniture was delivered in the lead up to Christmas. This year I knew that we could easily fit a much bigger tree so we were on the look out for something around 6 or 7 foot tall.

Looking for the perfect tree

So many trees to choose from

Lola and Kim

Here comes Ava with the tree cart

After searching a little while we found our perfect tree - although we had to look up a little. The tree that we settled on was substantially taller than our apartment ceiling height however, the bottom few feet were just trunk with no branches coming out. Kim put on his lumberjack hat and sawed down the tree leaving behind a tall branchless stump.

Kim saws down the tree

Time to put the camera down and go help hold the tree

We got it!

Kim carts our tree back to the car

Kim armed with his tree saw and freshly cut tree

The friendly staff at Reindeer Ridge wrapped our tree in string, carried it out to the car for us and strapped it to the roof rack. All in the pouring rain. Thanks guys!

Loading the tree onto the car

Having never driven with something on the roof before I felt compelled to keep checking that the tree was still indeed there even though I knew that it was securely attached. The car's sun roof came in particularly handy for this!

The car's sunroof made it easy to keep an eye on the tree!

It didn't fall off!

After leaving the tree to dry off for a few hours in the garage Kim lugged it inside. It turns out that our tree was a little taller than we'd expected (even after cutting the trunk so high) and the very top of it grazed our ceiling! A little snip to the top and it was perfect.

It just fits!
Look at my high tech baby - texting while she poses!

One perfect tree ready for decorating

Now all we need to do is decorate our tree...