A big, important list. Of things he’d like Santa to deliver on Christmas Day. I’m definitely hoping Santa can deliver at least some of it.

Chris’ post from Powell’s today

Part of our annual holiday experience over the last three years has been a trip out to the countryside of Virginia to cut down a Christmas tree. The first year we ended up at an overpriced tourist trap of a tree farm with very few trees. Sure it was in a picturesque spot, but we refused to pay $50 to cut down our own three-foot-tall tree, so Rudi and I left, deciding to head elsewhere.

We were working off a list of tree farms from the Washington Post that was divided up by county. By chance, I recognized one of the other town names in Loudon County as being the home of the British Pantry and back in a homeward direction. So we pulled out the map, found where the appropriate road was, and trundled off.

And Creekview Farm was just what we were looking for. New Road is a misnomer. It’s an old dirt/gravel road filled with potholes and roller coaster hills — just like back home. The yard wasn’t packed with tourists and we ended up cutting down the first tree we came to. The farmer kidded us that we hadn’t even had time to stretch our legs yet.

I have a hard time making many decisions, but picking a tree is not one of them. This comes from my earliest childhood years when my folks used to wander the farm to view each and every tree. One year the farmer came out looking for us, fearing my 8-month-pregnant mother might have come to some difficulty. I couldn’t have been much more than 6 or 7 when I first began whining and demanding to be left at my grandparents while my parents spent hours for the perfect tree. Since then, my philosophy has pretty much been, if I can’t find a lovely tree in the first five minutes, I’m doing something wrong. (This rule obviously does not apply to tree farms lacking firs over waist level.)

So now each year on the first Saturday of December, we pack ourselves into the car, point it in a westward direction, and drive until the air is fresh again.

Farmer John Hutchison greets you with a smile and familiarizes you (if necessary) with the four varieties of trees he grows — blue and Norway spruces and white and Scotch pines. We like the Norway spruce. The pines don’t tend to have enough strong branches to hold some of our heavier ornaments, and the blue spruce is terribly prickly. (As it is, both Rudi and I usually break out in a rash from where the needles poke the skin.) But the Norway isn’t too itchy, holds its needles well, and has a decent number of weight-bearing branches.

If you have a preferred tree variety and/or height, Farmer Hutchison will point you in the general direction of where you’ll find the ideal tree. If you don’t, he encourages you to wander the lots, which is probably a mere two acres. Then he sets you loose with work gloves (if you need them) and a saw.

When you return with your prized tree, the teenage boys working the farm take it and put it into a nifty machine that shakes loose the extra grass, needles, and critters, before baling it and attaching it to your car roof.

In the meantime, Farmer Hutchison gets you a steaming cup of apple cider to warm you up before your drive home. If his wife has been around, you can buy one of her wreaths or swags.

This year, as Rudi and the teenage boys were hoisting the tree onto our roof, I got a chance to talk with Farmer Hutchison and to ask how he’d fared in the area’s drought. He said that he’d avoided shearing the trees (to give them a more ideal shape) that summer in order to keep them alive, so he hadn’t lost any of his older trees. His new seedlings, though, had been lost. In fact, he said that he’d kept 25 dead trees in pots in the back just to show anyone who gave him a hard time about surviving the drought. He was hopeful for next summer, though, and said he was going to double his normal order (which is double what gets cut down at Christmas). Given that it takes 7-12 years for a tree to reach the mature height most people are looking for, hopefully there will be time for him to make up this year’s losses.

I wish I’d remembered to grab my camera because Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day, but you’ll just have to close your eyes and imagine yourself there with us. Midafternoon’s blue skies with some streaks of “horse hair clouds.” A nip in the air that makes you glad of your warm scarf and mittens. A meadow filled with trees and the scent of pine. A stream at the bottom of the hill and tall pines behind the shed. Now open your eyes and just breathe in the memory.

You’ll be happy to know that this weekend I did lots of blog-worthy things. I had a meal fit for the Queen. I had a party. Tomorrow night, we’ll be heading to the movies.

And I’ll write about them, I promise.

But not tonight. Tonight, I’m exhausted and must go to bed. We put in a heroic week of cleaning and purging — one to best any Family Weekend cleanup, you Conn folks — and I’ve hit my threshold of being able to hold my own head up.

But our house is now clean and festive, our fridge stocked, and our tree trimmed. Feel free to stop by if you’re in Dupont Circle.

Life is looking up, which makes me think that the doldrums that hit at the beginning of the week were definitely a combination of tiredness and PMS.

Getting some stuff done definitely helps, too. Rudi and I have started cleaning, which really means that the Burrow is much, much messier than it was this morning. Unfortunately, when I say messy, that translates to impossible to move around and every possible surface covered. It will get better; cleaning is one of those things that has to get worse before it improves.

I also finished the knitting of Mystery Gift #1. I still have to weave in ends and block it (it currently puckers a bit), but essentially it’s finished. I’m also nearly done with sleeve #1 of my cardigan and hope to finish it off tomorrow at lunch. I keep pushing back my expected finish date for the cardigan, so I suppose I’m now reasonably hoping for before Christmas.

Thanks for all the well wishes. I definitely appreciated them all!

I know it’s been a few days since I last wrote, but that’s because I was busy having a lovely weekend up in Connecticut. I ate lots of good food; had quality visiting time with the folks, Gramma, and Karen; and came home with pretty new shirts (thanks Mum!), (thin) socks, and shoes.

And, now, in the wake of both a holiday and a smidgen of a vacation, I’m feeling a bit low. Okay, credit that, if you will, to a lack of sleep or to its being that time of the month, or, even, to the fact that I need desperately to completely overhaul my apartment before Sunday afternoon. Nonetheless, I spent this evening curled up on the couch watching tv. Granted, I watch tv every Monday, but this week my knitting sat untouched in my bag in front of me for the whole night, even though I’m a mere 20 rows away from finishing Mystery Project #1. (Yay!)

I’m hoping tomorrow is a more productive day in all aspects. It would be great to get to party-time on Sunday without having our guests have to help us prep the food or carry the tree into the house.

If you’ve been wondering about the radio silence around here recently, we’ve been combating a bug problem in our bedroom. Over the summer we had a grain moth problem in our kitchen. I’d been optimistic recently we’d finally gotten a handle on them, but discovered at the end of last week that the problem had merely migrated to the other side of the wall. So Rudi and I have been washing loads and loads of laundry — all of our linens, as well as a bureau’s worth of clothing. And since we had to tear apart the room to tackle the worms, we figured we might as well do a major top to toe cleaning.

Before we leave for Thanksgiving, we will have a spotless bedroom filled with lots of clean laundry. Too bad the holiday party we’re having in ten days will be held everywhere in our apartment except our bedroom.

Oh well. It’s always the way, right?