A real tree!

This being the first time ever for us to celebrate Christmas away from our families, we are doing it up the best we can on our tiny budget.  We've decided to have a 'charity shop' Christmas, meaning that all of our gifts will be bought in the charity shops (thrift stores).  We're going to make all our own Christmas tree decorations, so we've been collecting cardboard for cut-out gingerbread men, and drying chestnuts for painting and stringing into a garland, and saving Little Man's construction paper for paper chains.  We were even given a 3-foot tabletop tree, and some wrapping paper!

A live tree is the embodiment of Christmas celebrations in my nostalgia (no offense to either of our parents, who have both moved on to artificial trees, and I harbor them no ill will for it).  Every year in my childhood, we visited a U-cut tree farm.  We would roam through the trees, putting gloves and scarves on the ones we liked the best.  After what always seemed like hours, my dad would crawl underneath the Chosen One and saw it off with his handsaw.  I still remember how hard I had to work to get that saw to move when it was my turn to try.  And I can feel the fir needles poking through my gloves as we carried it back to the car.  And I can taste the little mini candy cane the proprietor gave out every year.  And I can smell the pine scent that filled the house for weeks.  So when Big Man suggested getting a live tree, I yearned with all my heart to go along with it, but didn't think we should spend the money (at least £20!).  After all, we already have a tree.

So imagine the thrill when Big Man walked me home after work on Wednesday to a surprise: a real, live Christmas tree, bundled in netting and standing in a bucket outside our front door.  In yet another instance to prove that God delights in giving gifts to His children, Big Man received a coupon from the building supply store where he shops regularly for work.  A free Christmas tree with any purchase over a certain amount.  Big Man needed to restock on light bulbs for several of the buildings on campus, and so, voila, the fulfillment of a silly but very dear wish for his loving wife.

We haven't decorated it yet, because we're currently battling swine flu in our household, but that's another post, and in the meantime, the back porch smells just like Christmas!