{"id":6817,"date":"2016-12-04T04:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-04T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=6817"},"modified":"2016-12-04T03:29:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-04T08:29:45","slug":"virtual-advent-tour-day-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=6817","title":{"rendered":"virtual advent tour: day 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VirtualWelcome to Day 4 of the Virtual Advent Tour!<\/strong> <\/center><\/p>\n
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My 20th annual tree-trimming party is today, which meant we spent Saturday buying groceries, cleaning, and, most importantly, buying a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

My family and Rudi’s both share the tradition of having live trees. Rudi’s family, though, living in a city as they did, bought their Christmas tree from a lot.<\/p>\n

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I grew up in a large town that was, to the east, surrounded by farming communities. So when Christmas rolled around, my folks would head to the farm to cut down a tree. Please note that I don’t say that I went to the farm; I so loathed the trekking up and down the hillsides hunting for the perfect tree that by the time I was six or so, my parents had found it a far less painful experience for everyone if they dropped me at my grandparents’ house for the duration of the trip.<\/p>\n

However, when it came time for me to have a tree in my own apartment, there was never any doubt in my mind that I’d head off to the farm to cut one down. And, we did, right to that same tree farm I’d whined about visiting 15 years earlier.<\/p>\n

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When we moved to D.C., it was more challenging. People get really pissed when you cut trees down in their yards in the city, and it’s a crime to cut them out of the parkland nearby. So the closest living trees are at least a 45-minute drive, often further. The first couple years we compromised by buying a tree at the farmers market. But after that I was back to wanting to get the tree ourselves and we set aside the first Saturday in December as our day to do so.<\/p>\n

I do tend to prefer to pick out my tree quickly. One year the farmer told me I hadn’t even gotten a walk out of it (to be fair, we did cut down literally the first tree we came too). But some years, a speedy choice is more challenging, and this year was one of those.<\/p>\n

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We’re onto our third tree farm of the region, and we’ll probably have to move on from this one next year. (The first one gave up farming trees, and the second one had a few in-between years where they didn’t have trees the size we needed.) Clagett Farm<\/a> is located in Maryland and is owned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, who operates it as a nonprofit.<\/p>\n

The most important thing when picking out any Christmas tree, be it artificial, still growing, or at a tree lot, is the dimension of the space it’s going into. You don’t want a tree that’s going to crowd up against your ceiling, and you don’t want one that’s going to encroach too much on the space around it. So know roughly how tall your ceiling is and how wide your desired location is.<\/p>\n

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\"Too<\/a><\/td>\n\"Too<\/a>