Then, the second Christmas was really hectic with a monstrous project at work that took over my life (am still trying to block that out), and I decided to forgo a tree that year. Did I really need one? It's not like I spend Christmas at my place. And last year I even went to a farm in the outback of Vermont where you put your $20 in the envelope, grab a saw and drive onto their land and cut down your tree. I got to help Dad put it up and decorate it and everything. But felt like I only got a small slice of Christmas - not really getting into the holiday spirit until much later in the month.So this year, I knew I was going to get a tree. I also thought I would try to wrangle getting it from the farm in VT (would require using dad's pick-up to bring it back to Boston). In November I started laying my ground work and thinking about exactly what type of tree to get. The more I thought about it the more it made sense to try out a larger tree. I have this wonderful living room that is quite open, two stories tall. The first tree seemed a bit dwarfed in the space as it was so short in relation to the height of the room. It looked like it was cowering in the corner (a bit of an exageration, but I was learning to justify my new plan). Plus, as I thought some more, if I'm paying a flat fee for the tree, it would make the most economical sense to get the largest one possible - more bang for the buck. Plus a tall tree bought in the city would cost in the range of $80 (I ended up only paying $25 - their taxes went up). I thought about it and then some more. And it helped that my brother was coming back into the country and claiming one of the cars at dad's meaning there was a shortage. This opened up the opportunity to get not only the pick-up but my dad's assistance in bringing in and putting up a tree (I got the first tree all by myself, but couldn't handle a bigger tree on my own).
Fast forward to last weekend. I drove up to VT Saturday afternoon and Dad and I hoped into the truck and booked it up to the farm before it got dark (at 3 pm). We walked around a bunch and selected two trees - one for him and one for me. Mine was a bit big, but then again his was a bit small. We bungy chorded both into the bed of the truck and made it back to his house. Spent the evening putting up the tree and decorating it. The next morning, I was looking out the window at my tree in the truck and parked near by was the neighbor's humongous SUV with a tree strapped on. My tree looked big. But again, I explained it away in that it was one of those optical illusions related to the diminutive size of Dad's pick-up in relation to the SUV. We headed off that morning and spent the afternoon bringing my tree in and putting it up.
Bringing it in was a little difficult and one of the tragic casualities was that the wonderous crooked top branch broke off. But otherwise after a quick sweeping afterward, you couldn't tell that I had brought a monstorous tree upstairs into my apartment. Yes, it turns out that my big tree is quite enormous. It's colossal. I was going to put it in the same corner, but was unsuccessful. I decided I will now catelog my lessons learned so that future Christmases I can learn from this one.
1. A room may be tall, but only in the center if you have a sloped roof/ceiling line. This means the tree cannot be in the corner.
2. Those exposed cross beams in the air way above your head are genrally invisible in daily life but can become quite an obsticale when putting up an object that reaches that height. They may seem invisible but they are still solid. This further restricts the positioning of the tree in the room.
3. Suprisingly, a tall tree translates into a big tree. Let me elaborate. Let's call the height of any given tree, H. And the diameter of any given tree at the widest point (near the base), D. As H increases, apparently, so does D - they're related, nature's funny like that. So the taller a tree the larger the girth.
4. A room may seem big because of tall ceilings, but that doesn't mean it's a big room. The floor area may still be limited. Again, an elaboration. Let's call the height of a room, H. And let's call the floor area of a given room, A. As H increases, A does nothing - they are not related. In the end you still have the same A.
5. Combining a large tree with a tall room that has a small floor area results in a room with a tree in it... and almost nothing else.
6. Also related to the girth of the tree is possible positioning of the tree in the room. Tucking the tree into a corner, or along the perimeter is no longer possible as the tree, although "tucked" is still a ways into the room. Actually, once you reach a certain size the tree will always appear to be in the center of the room no matter where it's placed.
7. If you have a tall tree, it would be helpful to have a foot stool. Unless you are really tall too. (getting that star on top was a bit tricky).
So that's my tree. It's 9'-4". I think it was over 10' before I broke the crooked top branch off. It's a big tree. I was worried I wouldn't have enough lights and decorations but buying just one more small string of lights it worked out wonderfully.
Well, the snow is really coming down this afternoon. We should be getting a foot or so. It is really turning out to be quite a christmassy Christmas!
