Our Griswald Family Christmas Tree

In the past years when living in Germany, we have just bought a Charlie Brown Christmas tree from the American Boy Scouts because we didn't know where else to go.  However, the Facebook groups have made this year different.  On a Facebook page for this area, Americans can ask other Americans or English speaking Germans about where to find anything.  I found out about this tree farm where you can cut your own tree down.  That is what we always did in Maryland.  Although there are places in our immediate area that were mentioned.  For some reason this tree farm stood out to me.  It was right outside a Mainz that had a good Christmas market.  We made a plan to hit this tree farm on the way home from that Christmas market the Saturday after Advent began.

It was after 4pm when we got to the tree farm.  It closed at 5:30pm.  We went out wandering around looking at all our options.  All the kids were pointed out the ones they wanted.  Drew wanted the tiny trees so he could "reach the top of it with a stool."  Most of the kids wanted a huge one.  When asked earlier in the day what size tree we were looking for, I had jokingly replied that we were getting the biggest tree we could find since we have super high ceilings and a huge van.  Upon further thought though, it seemed like a good idea.  Let's pick out the Griswald family Christmas tree instead of the Charlie Brown ones we've sometimes had.  Hannah fell in love with the biggest tree ever...

Nope!  Not this one!

Brian vetoed it saying it would have to be in the center of our living room because it was so tall and that it was longer than our van.  Whereupon Hannah bursts into preteen tears dripping with homesickness and self pity.  She cries out, "This is why I like America better!"  Even though in American we had really low ceilings and could never have had a tree as big as that.

She recovered as most tweens before her have done.  Bobby makes all people happy.  

Judah didn't care about the trees, just playing with sticks.

And then we found THE ONE at the very back of the lot.

So still huge, but it would fit on top of our van.  Hannah conceded that it was an acceptable tree.  Brian started to saw the base.

And he sawed.

And he sawed some more until it finally fell.

Brian then declared that this was a mistake.  We hadn't really thought about how heavy it would be.  How far we were from the van now at the back of the lot.  Nor did we remember that this had to be hoisted up onto the van and then up several flights of stairs to our main level.  Oops!

See how happy he was to drag the tree that wouldn't fit on the sled.

See how light it is when he started this process of securing the tree to the van for the hour plus drive home.  It was very dark when he finished, and the tree farm had closed.

We made it home and I helped him get the tree off the van and up the stairs to the living room.  It was crazy heavy.  Brian's guess is 200lbs.

After the kids went to bed, we got it upright in our heavy duty stand with Hannah's help.  It actually touched the slanted ceiling which made me laugh.  Brian trimmed the top so the star would fit on top.  We had to trim the bottom a lot as well,  I used the branches to decorate around the house and on the front balcony.  Pictures of the final decorated tree to come in another post.