Behemoth Tannenbaum

Our Christmas tree this year is a majestic beast! The weather forecast for the mountains looked slick and dangerous, so this year on black Friday (Nov 28th) we opted to go to the Triangle Christmas Tree Farm in Zillah, WA to cut our tree. Since Zillah is only 25 minutes away, the net time we spent obtaining our Christmas tree was cut from 4+ hours down to less than 90 minutes. It almost felt too easy! That is, until Jeff fell in love at first sight with one of the biggest trees on the farm. The time we spent wrestling with our massive tree far exceeded our past mountain Christmas tree expeditions.

Posing with our enormous tree, before it was cut.

Jeff had scheduled swim practice for 10am on Friday, Nov 28th, so we didn't leave for the Christmas tree farm until close to 3pm. Jay drove us to the Triangle Christmas Tree Farm while we listened to Christmas music. At the farm, they gave us a flag to wave when we selected our tree. A few tree-cutting guys were watching and waiting for people to wave their flags. When a flag waved, the guys brought their chainsaw out and cut the tree down. We accepted our flag and walked a short loop through the trees before Jeff convinced us to get The Big One. It took 3 big adult men employed at the farm plus Jeff, Jay, Rose, and Amber, to lug the tree back to our van. They had to set the tree down and take two or three breathers on the way. I felt a little bad for just watching them carry it, but someone had to document the insanity!

Once we reached our van, I did help heave and hoist the heavy tree onto the roof. It engulfed our minivan. The two ratchet straps that we brought seemed minuscule in comparison. With difficulty (and some climbing in and out of van windows), we got the tree strapped to the roof. The lady that we paid ($25 for any size tree!) asked if I would send her a picture of the tree once we got it set up at home. She gave me her cell phone number! Jeff drove us home carefully. While we rolled out of the Christmas tree farm parking lot, I saw one of the workers taking a video of us. There's nothing I enjoy more than making a public spectacle, haha.

Back at home, Jeff and Jay measured the tree and then rolled it off the van roof onto a tarp. Jeff cut about 3 feet off of the bottom of the tree so it would fit under the peak of our vaulted ceiling. Then we crammed the fat pine through the front door, leaving a green tinge on the door frame. I wasn't so sure our tree stand would hold this behemoth, but we got it situated. It took all five of us pushing and balancing the tree to get it straight and tight in the stand.

Since we only had 6 strands of lights at home, we took a family trip to Walmart and purchased 5 boxes of 300 lights each. It was a lot of lights, and we needed all of them. Somehow we also got a 3 pound bag of gummy bears while we were at Walmart...Amber wanted to try building a Mayan temple with toothpicks and gummy bears as part of a school project, so we veered into the candy aisle after getting the lights. I knew that my family would be circling vultures trying to eat Amber's gummy bears, so we got the biggest bag available to mitigate the problem. It was gone within two days. Since I didn't partake, that's almost a pound of gummy bears per person! I can't think about that too hard.

Back at home, Jay tossed some lights on while the rest of us ate dinner, but Rose and I decided the tree needed lights deeper inside, so we removed Jay's lights and did two rounds: one set of lights closer to the trunk, and another set of lights around the outside of the tree. It took us two hours. The tree tipped over once, smashing a light bulb and its little green attachment to the wire. The entire family had to come hoist it upright again! We almost lost heart, but once the tree was up again, we removed that damaged strand and persevered. When the lights were finally on and Rose and I were sufficiently exhausted, we called it a night. 

Saturday evening, we decorated the tree. This was the most fun part, because the tree-wrestling was over. I have one shoebox of good decorations that fill our usual skinny mountain Christmas trees, and one shoebox of ugly strange decorations that for some reason I haven't gotten rid of but I don't like and try to hide every year. We used all of them, plus a box of 24 gold baubles that we picked up at Walmart. This tree may have only cost $25, but it cost nearly 3 times that just to fill with lights and decorations! We had to climb up high to carefully hang ornaments up top. The tree was so fat, we couldn't reach the tippy top, even using a tall kitchen stool with a tall human being on it. So we got out our silly pincer grasping toy and Jay used that to place the star on top. Our star is tiny, because the mountain Christmas trees are very thin and bendy, and unable to support large stars. This tiny star looks hilarious atop the behemoth tree!

We took some pictures of the tree on Saturday night and went to bed feeling extra Christmasy. Sunday morning (Nov 30th), I was in the bathroom doing my hair when I heard a loud, jingly crashing thump from the other room. "I hope that's not what it sounded like," I thought to myself. It was. Our massive, carefully decorated Christmas tree had come crashing to the floor. Again. Jeff was already gone at church meetings, so I removed the tree stand and left the tree as is while we went to church. When we got home, it was (yet again) all hands on deck to lift, hoist, groan, and grumble that tree back into an upright position. Jeff screwed two cup hooks into the wall and used twine to hold the tree in position. We redecorated the tree with the fallen ornaments. There was only one casualty: the macaroni angel I made at age 7 was broken beyond repair. All of my least favorite ornaments survived, of course, but the ceramic Nauvoo Temple that was on top of our wedding cake didn't break! Only the tiny ceramic angel Moroni broke off, but it was only a triangle tip, not actually shaped like a trumpet-holding angel, so it was ok. 

Our tree has remained upright for an entire week. I think we need an ornament with interchangeable numbers on it that says "This Christmas tree has been accident-free for 07 days."

This was possibly the last sunny day we had for an entire week. It was lovely. That's the behemoth tree on the right.

Carrying the tree: the three grown men hefting it on the other side aren't even visible!

The horror. How did we make it home?

Jay and Rose climbed out of opposite van windows to feed the ratchet straps through, since we don't have a roof rack.

We made it home at sunset!

Measuring the tree. It was 13 feet long.

Cutting it down to a "manageable" 10 feet.

The bottom of the tree had SO MANY branches, it looked like we had a second Christmas tree in our driveway. 

The struggle--I jumped in and helped after taking a quick picture!

This tree has presence. We had to completely rearrange the furniture in our family room to fit the tree.

Ugh, getting those lights on was so hard! Rose and I worked together, sweating and climbing, until it was shining bright!

Triumph!

This is the brightest tree we've ever had. By about 800 lights.

[The next day:] Let the decorating begin!

Jeff, testing the star placement strategy. I hung our advent pouches on the bottom of the tree because it was so big, they fit.

Jay wanted to place the star, and since he's the tallest in our family, we deferred to his 6'2'' height.

Jay, in a rare expression of ...something, haha.

Victory!

Our true natures come out.

Then we really started getting silly.

Bigger trees = bigger smell. Our house is fragrant with fresh pine scent. It is so festive!

Saturday night.

Sunday morning.

This ornament that says "believe" on it coincidentally fell onto the chair by the tip of the fallen Christmas tree. I appreciated the symbolism.

Our 19 year old Nauvoo temple ornament, minus the tippy top trumpet. Still looks good.

I had the kids pose in tragedy before we left for church.

Amber, re-decorating.

Can you see the hooks and twine?

Hopefully the tree doesn't pull the hooks from the wall!

The final final product--a little worse for wear, but upright and shining again. There's a lesson in there.

Jeff and Jay, green and red, red and green. They were amused.

Sunset through our kitchen window, with the sparkle of our Christmas tree in the reflection.