Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

On December 8 Dan and I put up our first Christmas tree at our new house in NJ. We always get a real tree, but this year there were two big challenges: 1) where do we go to get one? We would really like to cut our own; and 2) is it going to fit in the livingroom??? Obviously the 2nd issue was the bigger of the two! Being the planner that I am, I measured the area we wanted to put the tree in so I could get a feel for how big of a tree would fit. Then we headed out into the wild blue yonder of Northern Jersey. We drove around for awhile to see if we could find a cut your own place but didn't have any luck (and this is where my planning could have been useful as in I should have taken the time to look up tree farms on the internet, but no, I didn't). After we took a 'tour' of some areas we hadn't been to previously, we came upon a nursery. They had a huge selection of beautiful trees, so we pulled on in and started looking. We were immediately greeted by very courteous and helpful staff which made me wonder if we were still in NJ; I mean, we had been driving for awhile, and I didn't think we had left the state but such nice people in NJ just didn't see right! J/K to all you NJ people! Actually, I am one of those NJ people now (well half the time anyways). So we were pointed in the direction of the size trees we were looking at buying. After about 20 minutes of me walking around and around the same small group of trees, I found THE tree. Dan agreed that he liked it and it should fit in the spot perfectly. Dan pulled the car up and the guy at the nursery strapped it on the roof. I'm not really sure if BMW's were meant to haul Christmas trees, but it worked out perfectly. Of course I also had to get a nice fresh wreath. After spending too much money, we headed back to South Orange. When we finally arrived at the house, I cleared the way and Dan brought in the tree. Have I mentioned yet how much I love Christmas and Christmas trees and decorating the tree?!? One of the first things I did when we got home was turn on the Christmas music! You certainly can't decorate a tree without Andy Williams playing in the background! We got the tree set up in the stand and then the task of decorating began. Actually, the hardest part of decorating is unwrapping all of the ornaments I so delicately wrapped up after last Christmas. After a slew of ornaments were laid out on the couch (grouped together with like ornaments -- I told you I have issues ;-) ) the fun began. Dan mostly 'supervised' while I carefully placed each ornament in their own spot on the tree. About 2 hours later -- haha j/k -- I finally finished and the tree looks beautiful! (In my opinion anyways).