O Christmas Tree, O Christmas

Each year I toy with the idea of going out and cutting down my own Christmas tree. Then I think about it more. Who am I kidding? I don't know how to cut down a tree. And there's all sorts of trees right here. A couple of years ago I found a good tree lot. The trees seem to stay fresh for a long time and are always nice. So each year I manage to talk myself out of cutting down my own. I mean, really, there's a nice place close. Why go through that?

This year, like others before, I had gone through the process once again and had, once again, decided against it with the thought of "maybe next year." Typically, like in Christmas of my youth, I get my tree the day after Thanksgiving. We ended up going shopping instead (it wasn't that bad, really), so delayed the quest until Saturday.

The plan was simple: take my friend Ricki to another friend's house and then off to get the tree. So I go out to move the Rav...we had to take the mini of course...insert the key and "Click Click Click". Now I don't know much about cars, but I know click, click, click is not a good thing. Long story very, very short: the battery was dead. We got it replaced and jumped into the car to go to my favorite lot. Which is apparently now gone. Yep, gone. I should know that an empty lot won't last long in this city. But now what?

You know, sometimes in life it takes something to happen to make you change. This was one of those times. The moment had come and the decision was made: YES, THIS is the year we will go and cut down our tree. The first task was finding a place that had Noble Firs. We found one: Santa's Tree Farm in Half Moon Bay.

As you pull in, there's a little shack where you stop to get a map of the farm and

They give us a little hand saw. Are you kidding me? We're cutting down a tree here. I began to wonder if we had made the right decision. We drove around and found "the one". Cori started the whole process, but wasn't very successful. I took a shot. Turns out cutting down a tree really isn't so hard! :0) Sorry Cori.

So down the tree came. You can see more pictures here. It was actually quite fun...and I think we may have started our own Christmas tradition.