Wintery Tree Killing

We went to a tree farm to murder a tree for the holidays. I still have ambivalent feelings toward Christmas trees. On the plus side: the scent of a tree in the house, the fun of decorating the tree with friends and family, the shiny bits, the memories of childhood trees, not to mention listening to The Nutcracker and imagining the tree getting bigger and bigger ... but, on the other hand, it's still killing a tree for decorative purposes.

I suppose if we were eating the tree and using the needles to craft our clothing... or if the tree were a potted tree I'd feel better about it. Unfortunately, our track record with potted trees isn't much better than with the ones we dispatch quickly.

The day was pretty mutable. Sunny and about 40 one moment and then rainy and about 35 the next. To get to the trees one could ride a horse-drawn cart. The horses were Percheron draft horses named Ruby and Ted. Ruby was 20 years old and Ted was her 10 year old son.

Mark's family's tradition is to decorate the tree on December 24. Since this is my birthday, we will decorate a few days earlier. In the mean time, the tree is in a stand making the house smell nice.

We've got a lot of stain glass decorations up (Mark's family makes them). I think my favorite is a large snow flake made out of beveled glass tiles. I think Mark's is a stocking made with vivid red glass.