LaughAtlantis

(Yes, I know, it's been a while since I blogged. I'm working on it... check out my 43things entry . In any case! Here's my first-time-back-in-two-months blog entry.)

It's been a long time since I had a Christmas tree of my own - at least eight years and probably more. In that time period I've also never had occasion to walk the streets at night pulling a basset hound on an extension leash. So that makes this year a very new experience for me from the standpoint of judging people's Christmas trees.

In Somerville, the city apparently waits until the third or fourth week of January and then comes around with a mulcher to chew up all the discarded Christmas trees. So, despite the fact that you might have put your tree out onto the curb for trash pickup on the first of the year, it's still sitting out there now waiting to be mulched. And because I am walking Bacon around the block on an every-other-night basis, I see these trees and evaluate them.

I have strong feelings about what a Christmas tree ought to look like. Back in December when Rod and I bought a tree, I made him hold each one out so I could look at it, then declared loads of them as simply not right. Rod could not fathom why I was putting these trees aside. He even suggested that I get a fake tree. Fake tree! FAKE TREE!?! That's not Christma. Finally, I had to tell him, "I'm going to be irrational for the next ten minutes. Just accept that." In the end, the tree we got was lovely, but I wasn't entirely keen about the very bottom of it - especially because we couldn't put ornaments or anything on there, what with our dog's tail being of a particularly waggy nature. And it dried out really quickly, so we put it out on the day after Christmas and it went into the regular garbage truck. But everyone after that is waiting for the mulcher.

So, as I wander the streets at night, I look at all the trees on the sidewalks and think, "Would I have bought that?" The answer, by and large, is no. I feel like it's a Goldilocks and the Three Bears thing. This tree's too tall - that tree's too short. This other one's tall and awfully skinny - whereas this other one is so round, it makes me wonder if the owners were looking to buy a hedge. There were darn few trees that would have made my cut. And I need a tree that is juuuust right.

So, with that, I present our tree!

It's the right shape, right size, but that bottom right side is a little annoying. Oh well. Better than ninety percent of the other trees in our neighborhood.

Not bad, eh?