It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

So it was time to get our Christmas tree; despite the fact that we're still in the house with the giant ceilings, we were thinking something slightly smaller than last year...  Figured we'd go to the store, pick up a tree, and come home.  That's what civilized people do right?

So we ended up driving down this driveway at a tree farm...

...that had this very promising sign.

The farm had a Christmas Store with all kinds of nick nacks and decorations, but sadly no tree skirts, which was the one thing we actually needed.

We ventured out to look at the trees, but those that had been pre-cut were rather sad looking.  So we grabbed a saw and went in search of a tree.

This is not as much of an adventure as you might otherwise think...

Of course the tree Chris liked best was green.

But in the end we decided it'd be a white Christmas.

They had no sleds available when we got there, so Chris and I dragged it back to the road, then he went and got the truck for the rest of the trip.  When we got back to the shopping area, we took the tree over to where we'd picked up the saw, and it was placed on the shaker.

Loading the tree on the shaker

This slightly ingenious machine literally shakes the tree, encouraging all loose needles, pine cones, leaves, and critters to vacate.  Awesome idea.   Following the shaking the tree was loaded onto the tree version of a hay bailer.

After it was eaten by this machine, it came out all nicely compacted and wrapped.

All in all an amusing day, with the snow gently falling in an appropriately picturesque manner.  The tree is now up in our living room, but as I lack the ambition to decorate it at the moment, you'll have to wait till tomorrow for that picture ;)   I am, however, thoroughly amused we cut our own and glad we did.  Just seems like one of those things you should do at least once.  Check.

Although we still don't have a tree skirt -- those things are remarkably hard to find!