Oh Christmas Tree, How Beautiful Your Branches...

I always had an artificial Christmas tree until I met my partner. He always had a real tree. I didn't like the idea of cutting down something so beautiful, but after looking into the ecological impact of real trees, I agreed with him that it does the Earth no harm as long as you do it right - in fact it can be beneficial because young trees synthesise more Carbon Monoxide than older trees and th old trees can be used for mulch and woodchippings, rather than burnt or buried like in the old days.

Every year we've all wrapped up and gone to choose our tree. This year we couldn't take everyone because we could only take one van and we need to have space for the tree on the way home, so we took the youngest 2 and off we went...

As we got out of the van I spotted a gorgeous tree, but we went for a browse in case we found something better, and a nice lady brought us hot chocolate and warm mince pies to keep us warm. 

Even Santa was there to keep us company!

We ended up going back to the original tree - which was right by our van and the poor man had to carry it all the way back up the hill...

We waited for him in the shed - which gave time for the boys to have an impromptu song and dance session and delight everyone with their rendition of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'.....and have a peep at the man with the saw behind the screens...

 

Then our tree was wrapped up and ready to go...

Thank goodness we have a van! 

And will it fit? These things always look smaller in the open air....

Only just! 

It did take a bit of decorating....4 of the children and Dad spent  several hours on it....

"Not bad"....

This year it was the turn of Girl no.1 to place the finishing touch...

I'm very pleased with our tree, it's pretty epic and a little bit bigger than we'd intended, but it does fit really well. I think it's gorgeous and we've done it proud....we just have the rest of the decorations to put up now!


I'm linking with RedRoseMummy's 'O Christmas Tree' Linky...