Monday 12 December 2011

Christmas Tree Dilemmas

Following on from my other Christmas blog. I bought a Christmas tree this weekend, very much the traditionalist, I still love the smell of pine in the home which always brings back memories of Christmasses past. On my way back from a Christmas shopping trip I saw signs for Christmas Trees chopped or rooted. Intrigued I followed them only to find a Christmas Tree nursery virtually on my doorstep which I never knew existed. As mentioned in my other blog, I just wanted the usual Christmas tree but oh no that's too easy!! I was met with a large field of several different tree plantations of trees, not just the bog standard Norway Spruce which we all know and love here, but other alternatives, were Blue Spruce, Normanndian (I think that's how it's spelt!!) and so on and so on!! Some drop needles, some don't, some hightly scented, some not. Different labels on different trees indicating the price you would need to pay except "a yellow label which you can't have because someone has already reserved it". Oh Lordy how much more confusing is this going to get! You could dig up your own, chop it down yourself (tempting to chop down the biggest on the plantation but better not) or get someone else to chop it down.I only wanted a little itsy bitsy tree for somewhere to put my presi's around, but I was faced with trees several metres tall!! I asked the very kind lady wearing the Santa hat who was trying to look Christmassy with a bit of tinsel around her sleeves and a bell on her head but very muddy butterfly boots (huh!!), "Do you have any small trees?" She looked at me blankly and said oh yes and pointed to one that was almost 5 feet tall!! Is it me? I'm thinking, "Actually, no I mean really small trees you know about 2 - 3 feet tall?" "Oh I don't know, we don't have much call for small trees these days" At which point I'm thinking yes it must be me or else she thinks I really tight-fisted and have no Christmas spirit at all!!

She takes me to the plantation owner who as a favour lets me choose from a plantation of nursery trees with the retort, "It's O.K. me duck, we try to please all our customers, you just choose the one you like". Oh relief, I'm then faced with the decision of a dropping needle or not, a blue or not oh I give up!! I resort to getting one chopped down whereas I always had a rooted one, but at this point I just wanted to get a tree and get it trimmed up with decs. Having chosen a very prickly blue spruce upon espying a colony of ladybirds over-wintering on it's top, decided I couldn't resort to damaging the wildlife being an eco-friendly type of person and had to choose another and went for a Normanndian. Get me out of here quick. At least the lady with the bell, hat and tinsel was offering treats of a mince pie, chocolates and/or some Damson Gin. Thus didn't have to decide on a mince pie, there was only one on offer but had to make a decision on the chocs., wasn't a problem just dived in and took my favourite before the beady-eyed little elf standing next to me pinched it!! Aah the joys of Christmas time!! :)

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