I don’t remember when my family started doing Christmas trees, but I do know that there was never much fanfare around it. The tree lived in a box in the attic and at some point before Christmas, it would be brought down and put up. When my brother got married, Christmas trees all of a sudden became a big deal for my family, because my sister in law always put up their tree on the day after Thanksgiving. They inspired me to create our own tradition around Christmas trees, so Jonathan and I decided to buy a real Christmas tree!
To be honest, part of the reason we got a real tree instead of a fake one this year is because our apartment is too small to store an artificial Christmas tree. Last year we got away with no tree because we spent Christmas in Kenya, but we’re going to be here this Christmas and wanted to bring some Christmas spirit into our home, especially because we’re hosting our church’s worship team Christmas party!
We got our Christmas tree from one of our favorite local mom & pop establishments, an ice cream parlor called Magic Fountain. In what is probably the most brilliant business move for an ice cream shop ever, they turn into a Christmas tree shop during the holiday season, selling trees in the parking lot! Before leaving the house we measured the space where we wanted the tree so I wouldn’t get too eager and get a tree that we didn’t have space for. I was actually impressed with the tree selection at Magic Fountain – they had a lot of really big trees, but also a good number of medium sized trees and even 3 feet tabletop trees that could fit in any space.
You can’t exactly call an Uber for a Christmas tree pickup, so the folks over at Lexus were kind enough to let us borrow the 2018 Lexus RX 450h AWD F Sport for a few days. The red leather interior seats put us even more in the Christmas spirit! It was really easy to tie our tree up on the roof, and the beautiful sport grill had us cueing DMX’s “Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer” rendition during the ride ?
Once we got home and set the tree up, I decided to add some lights and a few ornaments we had from last year’s low key, low budget holiday decor. It took a while to find the perfect star, but I finally settled on this one. The only other thing that was missing was a tree skirt, but luckily we have a few plaid blankets that we received as wedding gifts, so I just threw one down around the tree as a makeshift skirt #decoratinghacks! I’ve started to wrap some gifts with the prettiest silver wrapping paper from Papyrus, so there’s glitter everywhere but I absolutely love it! I watched a really frightening Facebook video about how it takes dry Christmas trees only 30 seconds to go up in flames, so I’ve been making a point to check the water every night and unplug the lights overnight and during the day.
Do you put up a Christmas tree? If so, do you use a real one or a fake one?
Growing up we used to use real tree, I can remember after Thanksgiving going with my father to pick out a big tree with my other siblings. You have to remember it was 11 of us. As we started getting older, we graduate to an artificial tree. Today, I still use artificial tree. Do I have decorations? Yes, galore I do. I think the best time to buy decorations are after the holidays half price or even more off.
Great tip about getting decorations after the holiday! I wish I had space in our apartment to store them.