The Tree

If you had have told me when I was 18 that I'd have a fake Christmas Tree one day I would NEVER have believed you. When we went to Australia trees were $40 for a twig. FORTY DOLLARS hello? We spent $110 on a fake tree. that was in 1998 so that means we have now put it up for the 12th time meaning that's it's cost us less than $10 a year and it's still going strong. I do REALLY miss the real Christmas tree smell and if we won lotto I'd most certainly go back to real especially as they are so flash and pretty up here in Auckland! But I'm happy with the fake- the needles were a pain to vacuum and we invariably ended up with sticky gum on the decorations and it never really looked all that hot by the time the big guy made his drop.


One particularly memorable tree getting occasion happened around 1995 my friend Micheal and I drove the triumph up to the Kilmog Hill and scoped out a nice looking self seeded pine on a bank on the side of the road. Micheal, saw in hand, jumped out of the car and made his way up the bank to the chosen tree. I parked up the car a 100 or so metres away up the top of the hill. I couldn't see Micheal but I could see the violent shaking of the tree. After it fell I looked out for a space in the Motorway traffic, tooted my horn and drove down the hill. At the same time Micheal dragged the tree down to the side of the road- we stuffed it into the car and headed home laughing. :-)


Now days it's a short drive to the garage on base for the tree and out to the shed for the decorations. Les puts up the tree and then together we put on the lights, tinsel and garland type deco's. Les does the top half and I do the bottom. We make sure the lights are spread out evenly and then it's all on. There's no real method it's all just madness. Everyone does put their own decorations on the tree but other than that it's open slather. This is the first year that Will has had a turn decorating so there were three branches down the bottom of the tree that all had about six decorations each. But since Sunday he's removed most of those in his total fascination with the tree and it's and I have put them all back a little higher- so those bottom branches are now looking a little bare.

♥