It never fails. I’m so focused on WHRL’s Winter Tree Festival that Christmas decorating at home takes a back seat. I finally managed to get a simple wreath up yesterday with a rustic Merry Christmas sign Paul carved the other year.
Sunny and mild, Hannah and I did a lap around the property only to cut down a spruce tree behind the house. It was growing snug against another tree, so the back is flat, but despite that, it’s possibly the fullest, most traditional Christmas tree shape we’ve harvested at Downeast Thunder Farm. Our free-range trees are often a little quirky.
Cinder Kitty loves exploring all of the decorations.
I picked up some new Christmas lights. Last year I had some battery-operated cascading LED lights, but the TV remote kept turning them on and off. These two wired strands of LED cascading lights are beautiful – but they are so bright that I think you can likely see our tree from space.
The tree sits in one of my grandmother’s crocks. Paul’s part is always an engineering feat to keep the tree standing straight without a proper tree stand.
And to top the day off, Hannah and I made a stop to greet the visiting reindeer – who were absolutely adorable.
Less than two weeks until Christmas and the holiday vibe is starting to take hold.
Past “free-range” Christmas tree posts:
- 2010: A Downeast Thunder Christmas Tree
- 2011: A Little Bit Like Christmas
- 2012: Our Free Range, Organic Christmas Tree
- 2013: No Snow, No Spirit
- 2014: Christmas Past: Our First Home Grown Christmas Tree
- 2014: With Eyes Too Big for the Living Room
- 2015: Gidget’s First Christmas Tree Hunt
- 2017: A Late Start on Christmas
- 2019: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Real reindeer!
Those cascade lights are very effective! I bet it felt great not having to do the long haul drive to collect Hannah this year.
I love your free-range trees! My grandfather and I used to get our trees from the woods behind our houses. There had once been a tree farm back there that was long gone. Needless to say the trees were quite tall and we would only take the tops. We often had to take an extra tree and “fix” the ones we used by adding branches to them. He’d drill a hole in the trunk, cut a branch from the extra and add it to the one we’d decorate.
It was good not having to drive to Ohio and back – but I do miss the road trips with her!