The Thrill of the Hunt

We weren't able to get a tree last week, due to all the activity swirling around The Nutcracker, so we knew we needed to bag one either yesterday or today. We decided to wait for Sam to accompany us, so we headed out late, for us, at nearly 2pm. Our regular destination for cut-your-own trees is Jacobsen's, a nearly 30-minute drive, almost all the way to Point of Rocks, MD. 

Imagine our chagrin when we finally reached Jacobsen's, only to be met with a bit "CLOSED - OUT OF TREES" sign. Below that was a friendly note to "take a list of other farms - below." Sadly, those too were all gone. So there we were, having driven miles and miles and without any idea of where we would go next. 

This had happened once before and I vaguely remembered another farm, a good twenty minutes' drive. So we turned the van around and just drove some more, trying several directions before settling on Route 15 south of Leesburg. We were literally at the point of giving up on a cut-your-own, when Tony pulled off to turn around and we saw a sign for a tree farm. 

Salvation? Kind of.

The farm required another five miles, down a dicey, but pretty road. We were all struck by the LACK of tree-topped cars coming in the opposite direction. Uh oh. We finally arrived and found ourselves the only patrons of the farm. We were met by an extremely friendly gentleman, who got us loaded up into a hay wagon and drove us off to the tree fields. In my head I kept thinking, "and they were never heard from again...."

Fortunately, it was all kosher, except that the pickin's were, as they say, real slim. VERY few were tagged as available and those were in pretty bad shape, literally. Our friendly host had mentioned that they had pre-cut some Frasier furs near the parking area, so we head

ed back to take a look.

Most of these trees were the top portions of VERY large trees. The smallest here were at least eight or nine feet - others were larger. Of course, we were slightly fooled by inside vs. outside proportion - those darned trees just LOOK smaller outside. We ended up choosing a big, fat, pre-cut tree (shh! It's out little secret!) and had it loaded onto the car while Tony took the girls for free cider and candy canes. Almost made it worth the tank of gas it required to drive to God's green acre and back. 

Once we got home and tried to wrestle it off the top of the car, Tony and I really got an idea of how big this thing was - not so much tall as FAT and HEAVY. We ended up trimming it quite a bit once we got it into the stand. We have a fairly decent sized family room, but this thing

 just takes up a big chunk of it. 

Now it's all decorated and I guess we have yet another family story regarding the acquisition of a Christmas tree. Why do my forays always seem to have to be so dramatic? Though no story will ever top the year that our tree flew off the top of the car and my brother had to lay in the trunk and hold on to it the rest of the way home. Ah, the good old days...