New New Englanders

Listen up all you're new New Englanders.  Yes, I'm talking about those of you who have just moved into the area and are trying to settle into New England.  I have important advice for you. 

The first Christmas that my husband and I were here, we decided to get a real Christmas tree.  Oddly no Boy Scouts knocked on our door to announce they were selling them and we didn't see any fliers advertising trees as fundraisers for different high school clubs.  It turns out our local grocery store was selling them in the parking lot.  I thought for sure they would sell out since they appeared to be the only place that had them, but they didn't. 

The next year we planned to get our tree from Petco since the proceeds that year were going to help greyhounds.  We waited too long and I really thought we would be SOL.  On Christmas Eve though, there were still trees to choose. 

Where was everyone getting their trees? 

It turns out a big thing to do here  if you celebrate Christmas is to cut down your own tree.  Yes, I know !  I mean why would  you want to do that?  I figured they must give you a chainsaw, but no.  To mean it sounded like being cold and getting the same type of tree that you could already get pre-cut.  In fact the third year my husband and I decided to go to one of these tree farms.  It was freezing and after seeing the saw they gave customers to cut down the trees we opted for a pre-cut tree. 

In fact for the next couple years any time I heard a friend talk about cutting down their own tree  images of cold whining children flashed in my mind.  However, either we've lived here long enough and visions singing Christmas carols while cutting down a tree are getting to me or our kids are truly New Englanders because this year  I actually looked up places to cut down our own tree.  Google Christmas tree farms and your state and one is bounded to pop up. Here's a link to a Christmas tree farm guide for New England. 

Now, we haven't actually gone yet but it's looking like this might be the year we try it.  Of course I mentioned this to my neighbor who has two grown kids and she told me that out of all the years they did it her kids were hard pressed to remember ever cutting down their own tree.  It took a lot of prompting.  Then again, my neighbor said that why would they remember when she and her husband were the ones that always ended up cutting down the trees even when her kids were teenagers. 

[image credit - Laura Tasheiko, Maine]

Comments

[Margaret]

We love cutting down our own tree! Be sure to get a picture of the stump, they usually write your kids name and year on the bottom! Hopefully, we'll be cutting down ours tomorrow. A series of unfortunate events have prevented us from getting our tree yet!

[Fairly Odd Mother]

You know, this sounds so lovely and romantic, but I do love my "fake" tree which goes up right after Thanksgiving, stays up for over a month and then goes back into the basement with hardly a needle on the floor! I probably shouldn't admit that here in New England, but I do love it.