cutting down the Christmas tree

I didn’t grow up cutting down a real live tree for Christmas. We got ours at the Christmas tree lot and spent a few cold hours twirling trees to make sure we picked the perfect noble fir with no bad side. But Mr. M grew up in Pennsylvania, which just sort of lends itself to cutting down trees exactly where they are grown.

And even though we moved from the land of concrete rivers over four years ago to Northern California, we hadn’t ventured up into the mountains for a “real” tree since we relocated. Instead, we worshipped our beautiful fake tree and never thought twice. But with Mother & Father M official NorCal residents now, we thought a trip to cut down a tree would be a great time for the entire family up in the mountains.

So …. up to Apple Hill we went!

Miss L started eagerly walking up the hill…

… but soon learned that she much preferred the view on Daddy’s shoulders.

Mother & Father M brought a measuring stick in the car, so that we could accurately measure the height of the trees, since a lot of them are regrown from the stump.

Miss L finally found a tree that seemed “just right” … so we yelled, “CUTTER!!!!” and these guys showed up to make quick work of our tree cutting.

It’s hard to tell in these photos, but our swift silver tree is quite blue when you compare it to other traditional Christmas trees. I really like it because it’s so different…

Somewhere further up the hill, the grandparents found another swift silver tree that worked for them as well… so in about an hour we had both trees picked out, cut down and ready to go!

Once the trees were wrapped up, we had to make sure we could tie both of them on to the car and make it down the mountain with them (and us!) still intact.

After the trees were good and tied… we went to reward ourselves with some hot apple cider donuts and fresh apple cider. Last time we were up, the harvest hadn’t started yet… but man that apple cider is amazing!

We stopped for lunch on the way back home, and then plopped our tree in some water before everyone took a well-deserved nap (tree picking is hard business!).

And so far our freshly cut tree has done really well with less shedding and keeping all of its water as well. I can’t wait to share photos of it shortly!