Christmas Trees: We Tried Something Different This Year

Every year since we've been married, Nat and I (and the kids) have participated in a Moran Family tradition:  heading down to Braidwood to the Tammen Tree Farm to cut down a Christmas tree.  Last year's version can be found here.  And here.    What's that you say?  That's two different blog posts with two different trees?  Yep.  Like her Mother, Natalie likes to put up two trees.  One larger one in the family room and another smaller one in our front room.

Our trips down to the Tammen Tree farm are a lot of fun.  We pack into a couple of cars and drive around their farm to try to find everyone a tree.  We buy one (or starting when we moved into our new house - two), Nat's folks buy a couple and her sister buys one (I think).  Driving around is fun, looking for the perfect tree isn't so much fun.   Why?  Because we like Fraser Firs and I want a 'big' tree for the family room tree.  Tammen has a TON - hundreds - of smaller Fraser Firs.  Those that are six or so feet tall.  You can trip over a stump and find one of those.  But the larger ones?  They're harder to find.  It becomes a little stressful thinking that we're going to either not get a tree or (more likely) have to settle for something we don't love.

Our tree last year was nine-plus feet tall, but to get it, we ended up cutting a much-taller tree (something like 15 feet tall) that had a scrubby first few feet.  Not ideal.

So, this year, we tried something different.  We went to Wannemaker's and 'shopped' for a tree.  And we went before Thanksgiving.  Yeah...talk about changing things up, eh?  At Wannemaker's, they have all of their trees 'hung up' in their greenhouse - which is really nice.  It smells awesome in there and is quite a nice shopping experience.  You can twirl them around see them from all sides.  And then when you are ready, you pick out *your* tree, they cut it down, bale it and even tie it to the top of your car.  This is probably the "glamping" equivalent to Christmas Tree shopping.

When you select your tree, they ask your name.  I fumbled around and finally told them:  Claus.  That's what you can see on the label at the top of this post.

As for the tree, it is, indeed a Fraser Fir.  And is nine feet tall and very full.  Lovely tree.

We paid about double what we would pay for a 'cut-your-own' tree down in Braidwood.  But, you know what?  This was a fun experience.  Different, that's for sure. But, a lot of fun.

And we got the exact tree we wanted for the family room. 

We still went down to Braidwood for the family tree farm trip.  But, we only had to buy a small tree for the Green Room.  Easy peasy.