Christmas meets Alaska

I’ve never been all that much of a holiday person, and I haven’t decorated the house for Christmas (or anything else, really) since we bought this place in 2004. But I’m in my mid-30s, without children, and I’m starting to kind of miss Christmas. I enjoyed last Christmas at my brother’s place — they have an 8-year-old, and my sister-in-law really gets into doing all of the things for all of the holidays. So this year, inspired by that experience, I’m going to make the house all pretty.

I went out this morning and bought some garlands and ornaments and things. The back half of our 11 acres is a spruce-infested swamp, so I figured I’d go back there today and cut a Christmas tree. I said something to Orion about this, asking if the chainsaw was working, and he said, “Just use the hedge clippers.”

My response was basically along the lines of “Hedge clippers? Pshaw, you can’t cut a Christmas tree with hedge clippers! Don’t be silly.”

However, faced with trying to get the chainsaw running at 30 below zero, I grabbed the hedge clippers and trekked back into the swamp, and damned if he isn’t right. I seriously underestimated the sheer puniness of the Alaskan swamp spruce. There is hardly a tree in the swamp that has a trunk any bigger around than my wrist, and most of the trees under 20 feet look like broomsticks with a few little clumps of branches sticking off here and there.

Undaunted, I picked my tree and clipped off the top five feet, which is presently defrosting in the garage. I figure that you can hide anything with sufficient quantities of ornaments.

Originally published at Layla's Wordpress blog. You can comment here or there.