A Mountain Tree

My Christmas tree this year is a wild one! I loathe the perfectly uniform farmed trees, but not as much as I loathe not having a tree at all, so for the past several years, I've purchased a small one from one of the Christmas tree lots in town. None of them have remotely resembled the trees I grew up with, cut from my parents property. But a couple years ago, I discovered that you can buy a permit for just $5, which allows you to cut a tree in the National Forest. Last year I didn't have a tree, and this year Bill was excited about the adventure too, so on Sunday afternoon we drove up to Mt. Hood. We stopped to buy the permit, and headed up one of the many National Forest roads branching off of the main highway on the lower part of the mountain. We didn't leave ourselves a lot of daylight, so we didn't go too far, but a short wander up the snowy road and we found the perfect fir tree on the edge of the road (as well as the biggest mountain lion tracks I've ever seen. So cool. Also, spooky.).

Apparently our spatial skills were lacking somewhat. I knew we'd have to give the tree a haircut to make it fit in the corner of my apartment, but when we got the tree inside, we both cracked up, because it took up exactly half of my living room.

 Bill's having a snack after landlocking himself behind the tree. We were both on the verge of getting hangry by the time we got back to my place.

I had to cut at least a foot off of all the lower branches, and more off the back, so it would fit back against the wall in the corner. Handy, because this gave me some extra greenery for decorating my apartment and office. I'm very happy with it. For me, this is what a Christmas tree should look like: not groomed, not uniform, covered with multi-colored lights and an eclectic mix of ornaments.

My tree has lots of birds on it this year (not a Portlandia reference, I swear. I just like birds.). I already had a number of bird ornaments, and then I got sucked into one of the many antique shops in my neighborhood last week and found a bag of these beautiful and hilariously perky ones from Japan, which now are perched all over my tree.

Only two weeks till Christmas! (How the heck did that happen?!)