Where we live, one can buy a permit to wander the national forest and cut down your own Christmas tree. Anybody remember Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation? Yeah, that’s totally us. I think about that Christmas tree scene in the movie every year (I put the youtube clip at the end of this post for your viewing pleasure).
It is a wonderful family activity, and we have made a tradition of it. We do our best to get off the beaten path to find a good tree, which can be challenging when the roads are covered in snow. As in the movie, we wander through the snow, children whine, and we always end up picking a ridiculously oversized tree. This year was particularly silly, check out the tree in our living room before trimming:
The boys really got into it this year. They were so very excited about decorating the tree. After they had their way with it, I had to spend hours picking out random ornaments that they had seemingly just flung into the tree. And all of the ornaments that weren’t flung were located in a horizontal band between three and five feet off the ground. Good times. I’m sure I’ll fondly remember their excitement in years to come.
There are few places in the US where finding your own xmas tree in the woods is still possible; I feel really lucky that we can do it every year. It’s one of the perks of living in a small town on the edge of the mountains in a sparsely populated state. Also, I should mention the areas that the NFS permits you to find a tree are in desperate need of thinning anyway (to help mitigate wildfire danger), so it is not an ecologically insensitive tradition.
Below is a photo album from this year, as well as some past year’s xmas hunts.
And, as promised, a link to the scene from the movie:
