Tuesday is tree day at the farmhouse

It was a full morning: parcels to return, stamps to buy, gas to refill, fruits and untainted lettuces to resupply, doc to consult yet again about the never ending cough, tree to buy.

Breakfast first. (Such a good guy to put up with the photos, the cough, and, well, my Christmas love.)






In mid morning, I am at my grocery store, excited to look for a fresh little Christmas tree for the farmhouse. (I'd been told there would be a new batch in right after the Thanksgiving weekend.) But there are no new little trees. The store person tells me they are delayed. Until the end of the week.

Three scrawny trees, possibly frozen, because it is beastly cold outside, remain out front. The unwanted ones. I pick one and go back in.
What do you think, will it even last until Christmas?
She comes alive: last year  I bought one of the little unwanted ones and my boyfriend and I took off an inch and I swear, it was great for three months!

The idea of keeping a Christmas tree up until mid February fills me with horror, but I get the point.

I'll take it.


It takes no more than five minutes to decorate a tree this size. That's part of the allure. Indeed, price wise, it's a rip off: the full size version is only $20 more. Per branch, a small tree is a raw deal. Still, we keep things simple at the farmhouse. Snowdrop will get her big tree at home. Here, we enjoy stuff on a far smaller scale.

Snowdrop gets great pleasure in placing a gift from her -- a "macaron ornament" -- on top.  I hang two or three favorite ornaments from days when her mom was her size, and some tiny chickens, and finally -- three glass ones in the shape of candles. I tell her they represent my three grandkids. She finds an ancient holiday stocking in my shoe box of Christmas stuff and insists on hanging it on the tree too. It makes for interesting visuals.)






We are done!






The tree is in a new position this year (because of the screen that Ed has rigged up in order to experiment with conferencing technologies -- see below... talk about horrible visuals!). Snowdrop realizes that she can reach the top of the (elevated) tree by climbing up some stairs. The usual discussion about "how many stairs is it safe to bounce around on" follows.






Ah, but it makes for a beautiful image: the girl, the macaron ornament, the tree.






And then she is off and away, luring me into a game of going ice-skating, where she is the mom, I am the dad (talk in your man voice, gaga!) and we are giving her babies skating lessons.






Later, much later, I sit back on the couch and gaze at the little tree. All that beauty in a wee little thing. Remarkable.