To tree or not to tree, part 1

It's been five years since I was at home on Christmas, and even then I wasn't "at home" - it was the last holiday in the Chugiak house, where 13 years of relationship strain put bullets through any number of 'special' days, as one of my partner's special superpowers was to either make holidays wonderfully memorable or make them so full of anguish you only wish you could forget. And that last one was just a few weeks after Max's death too, and Gryphon's not many months before.

Hunter and I have only had one Christmas together since we hooked up, and this is our first one together at home. So I'd been thinking about whether to put up a tree. For some years I've been glad to avoid the decision. The last time I even got into the ornaments, it was with Becky, to fulfill the task of splitting all of it down the middle, half for him, half for me. They've been in Kari's crawl space since, and then in mine this last year. Haven't wanted to face the memories inside.

And then when you live here, there's a great Real Vs. Artificial debate. Some folks are surprised to learn that Alaska is among the rottenest places for Christmas trees. We just don't have 'em. If we have 'em, they are shipped, from places where Christmas trees are wonderful, and we pay the price. A lovely 7' fir from Minnesota might run you $80 if it was frozen, over $100 for fresh. [Well, that was five years ago - now, God only knows.] We had high ceilings at Chugiak and so it was fun to get 8 and 9 foot trees to put in our 'low' corner, but it wasn't unusual to pay $130-$150 for them.

Impractical, cost-wise and effort-wise for just us. So I decided to part with my love of the real thing and hunt a fake tree. But such disappointing displays in all the stores, and most more expensive than real trees too.

I'd nearly given up when I drove out to Chugiak today to pick up mail and happened to stop at a department store in Eagle River. This story is already too long, so suffice to say I managed to find a tree in a box, the only one of its kind, of a model that wasn't on display, for way less than it should have been worth, if it anywhere matches the description on the box label. I went up to the cash register expecting from the tag to pay about $130 for this $220 tree, and the SKU comes up at 89 bucks. My eyes widen. The checker's eyes widen. She smiles and wishes me a Merry Christmas.

Should I share the details I went through in advance of the purchase? Where I had to buy a tape measure first, go measure the box, then out to the parking lot to measure my tiny car and figure out a way to get this big box in there, and along with the dog too. And it wasn't really possible, but with a complete suspension of public dignity I got it to work. I wasn't going to leave a deal like that behind even if I had to call for assistance!

And I got it home, and darned if it does mostly live up to its labeling, with about 2100 tips on a 7.5 foot fake fir. Now it's to drag all that stuff up out of the crawl space and do all the decorating. Next weekend maybe. Almost glad I only have half the ornaments now.