Rituals | The Christmas Tree
| image courtesy of flickr |
The Elsie Green team all agrees that Black Friday shopping is a no-go. Instead we all use that day to do some volunteer work, then choose our trees.
Kelsey
We usually get our tree on Black Friday and spend our day decorating it instead of in crazy lines and fighting over deals. I love the silvertip tree. It reminds me of Charlie Brown Christmas. We turn on Christmas carols, make some mulled wine, and enjoy unpacking each of our ornaments. Each year we buy a special ornament and tag it with the year so that we can look back on all of our ornaments as a couple and as a family each Christmas season. This year our son Griffin (2) will get to pick out the ornament all on his own.
Terra
We go out and get our tree the Friday after Thanksgiving. We go to the same produce stand out on a little country road every year. We decorate the tree, play Christmas music and when we’re all finished we watch a Christmas movie.
Terra's Favorite Christmas Playlist >
The Furbers (JP, Laurie, Andie & Katie)
We have gone to the same tree lot every year since the kids were very small. We bundle everyone up and head out mid-morning into the hills. JP gently guides us along the way so we all know what size and type of tree we're looking for. Then we fan out and each finds something that fits JP's criteria. The kids are not aware that JP and I have already agreed which of our children gets to choose the tree that year. So when each shows us their favorite, we both gush over the expertise and impeccable taste of the child whose turn we've decided it is. When the kids were babies we saved one pair of shoes from each of them to hang on the tree. Now that they're grown and don't live together year-round anymore, they wait until they're all together and hang their shoes on the tree together.
JP's Tips on Choosing the Perfect Tree >
Sepi
Our Christmas tree ritual goes a little something like this: visit the Christmas tree lot as many times as it takes to find the “perfect tree.” I’ll know it when I see it. The going record in the last six years is four visits. I know this makes me sound like a nightmare to shop with and my husband thought as such the first year we got a tree together, but he’s since embraced it as a charming quirk. Once we’ve found the one, we’ll pick a Wes Anderson film and share a glass of whiskey (on the rocks for me, neat for him) while we decorate the tree.
Sepi's Top 3 Favorite Wes Anderson Films
The Darjeeling Limited
Grand Budapest Hotel
The Royal Tenenbaums
Michele
We cut down our tree together as a family, shop for one new ornament each year and alternate putting the tree topper on top. My favorite ornament is vintage, we bought it for my daughter one year when she fell in love with it. I remember the moment so well because it was so fragile and she was too young to handle it but it brought her such joy!
10 Things to Know Before You Go to the Tree Farm >