doodledee

Last weekend we went out and got the family Christmas tree. We had initially been kicking around the idea of trying to track down the classic "cut your own" experience, but as the month burned away we tabled that motion in favor of just pushing one of those tow-behind bicycle kid trailer things down to the various neighborhood tree lots and shopping locally while thinking globally. Maybe next year I'll get out the saw and the thermos of cocoa and do all that up. It sure sounds cool. I hear they even have horse rides sometimes. Giddy up.

This year's tree buying was a tad earlier than our usual "run out at the last minute and pick from the trees left on the lot that look so bad even Charlie Brown wouldn't take pity on them" routine. The inventory was plentiful at all the places we went, the weather was sunny and crisp, and I think I may have even whistled a little bit. Can't argue with that.

On the downside, my finely honed jedi bargaining skills are apparently of little or no use so early in the tree shopping season. Most years I go in expecting to enjoy a couple of solid rounds of statesman like negotiation with the Tree Lot Guy, but this year it basically consisted of him saying "$28" and me saying "$28?! Come on, it's all flat on this side - I'll give you $22," at which point he said "$25" and I said "Ok, deal" and got out my wallet because, honestly, the one side wasn't really all that flat and $25 seemed like a pretty reasonable price. Also, I was getting kind of cold and it was a long walk home.

The tree is around 5 feet tall and it's nice and green and I think it's a balsam or something. We brought it in right away and now our house smells all piney and stuff. I had to go to Target to get some more lights for it because - of course - when I plugged in the ones from last year they didn't work and I'd rather go pay $1.59 for new lights than spend 4 hours debugging a broken strand. I'm sure that makes me some kind of Edina cliche or something, but whatever, I'll deal.

On a related but not really note, I sure saw a lot of stupid expensive Christmas trees out there. Maybe it's just me, but when I was a kid working the Christmas tree lot, every car didn't drive away with a $100 Fraser Fur tied to the roof. At this point I'm going to go ahead and lump the 'deluxe Fraser Fur' in with the '$3000 flat screen television' and the '$500 vacuum' as prices I never thought society would tag as 'reasonable'. And yes, I'm sure there's some inflation-based argument to be made, but I'd rather sit here and be flabbergasted thankyouverymuch.

Tree on.