Lisa Beth

Ah, the much anticipated Christmas Tree search!

We had talked about whether to go to a tree farm and cut down our own, or go to the Farmer’s market and choose a pre-cut tree.  There were advantages and disadvantages to both.  The disadvantage of cutting down your own tree, is that in our area, they don’t grow the nice Frasier Firs that are so popular and perfect for the ideal “look” of a Christmas Tree.  These trees are only grown in the far western part of our state.  But of course, the disadvantage of buying a pre-cut tree is that you miss out on the “whole experience” of wandering through the fields of trees and searching for that perfect tree and then taking it down with your own hands with a saw!!

So, you are wondering… what did we do?  BOTH!  Yes, we decided first to go to a tree farm and see if maybe they had any good looking firs growing on site.  We knew this particular farm also had shipped in pre-cut trees if we ended up not finding any to cut down ourselves.

Eric’s internet search led us to this place called  ”Back Achers” Christmas Tree Farm

(and yes, that is a wild turkey on the top of the truck… not so wild though, as he and his friends were everywhere, mingling with the tree farm guests… very random and a bit bizarre, but added to the whole experience I guess)

Upon arrival, we meandered around the “cut your own” section, but quickly decided against the long needled trees in favor of the pre-cut short needled frasiers.   We watched as the older gentlemen who owned the farm bagged up others’ trees for $1….

we were thinking of spending around $30-$40 on an 8 foot tree… we thought… cute little family owned tree farm, more reasonable prices than buying it “in town”.  wow were we wrong!  There was not a tree there under $65!!  Craziness!  We promptly got right back in the truck to try Option B… destination:  the Raleigh Farmer’s Market!

At first when we arrived, we were “heckled” and “harassed” by an obnoxious tree salesman trying to get us to buy one of his $85 trees… yeah, no thanks.  We were getting discouraged again thinking are we seriously going to have to pay a fortune for a live tree?  when we came upon this wonderful man here with me in the picture below!

I know he doesn’t exactly look as thrilled as I am in this picture, but I assure you, he was extremely friendly and had the most endearing southern accent with words that whistled through his dentures as he spoke.  He was a part of a church group that brought trees in from Boone, NC.  He was an avid Appalachian State fan, and told me how his wife works at ASU and gets him free tickets to the sports games.  His trees were much more reasonably priced, and he wasn’t pushy at all.  Here is our “loot” with it’s much-more-reasonable price tag attached

He helped to trim off the branches at the bottom of the tree, and I quickly scooped them up, knowing there would be some decorating use for the extra pine boughs

He suggested that Eric get his picture with his saw… he was all about helping us get pictures to document the whole experience and said how they could go in our Christmas album

Proud owner of a REAL Christmas Tree!!

Now off to load it in the truck (Eric was so happy to have his truck for this occasion)

Stay tuned for pictures of the tree decorated and more festive holiday photos of our annual Christmas Cookie Baking/Christmas Movie Night!!!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 2:20 pm and is filed under My Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.