Trying Something New This year...Artificial-Wise

 For years, we pretty much knew what we were going to do for Christmas, as far a decorating the house and getting a tree.

We always got a real tree. Most of the time we went to a parking lot south of Layton High School and Layton Park, across the street from the old Pizza Hut (that has changed names and menus so many times since then...). A company from Montana brought trees down, we'd mill about for a few minutes--usually in the cold, pick out a tree, load it on top the minivan, bring it home, and bring it inside.

Simple. Done. The only thing to worry about was the cost.

Things changed last year. We moved and as Christmas approached, we needed a tree, but were to find one. We looked in our local area and saw no Christmas tree lots so we drove east, over the mountain pass to Logan. We found a nice tree, but in doing so, we discovered something--not new, necessarily. The cost of the trees had skyrocketed.

Fast forward ten months and my wife and I found ourselves in a Hobby Lobby store looking an artificial trees. There were a few reasons we never got a fake tree before. One, we really didn't have a place to store an artificial tree in our old house, and they were expensive. This year, we have space to store a tree and even though they are expensive, the real ones were catching up in price and catching up fast.

We found one--without lights attached--that we liked. We bought it and after Thanksgiving we put it up and trimmed it. It's tall and symmetrical--there are a lot of pluses to the tree. We don't have to worry about not watering it and it drying out, nor do we need to worry about how to get rid of it when Christmas comes to an end.

But, there are non-pluses as well. That smell of a fresh tree--I didn't think I'd miss it so much. And, I know it's not real. It checks off all the boxes of what a Christmas tree should be, but it just can't be what it's supposed to be, at least, not completely.

The cost of this tree would be the cost of two fresh trees, at current prices, so after next year, it's all gravy. And, I know being able to put it up at anytime without having to get in the car, drive to a lot, pick out a tree, try--without ever fully succeeding--getting the thing to stand completely straight, then taking it down, and throwing it away will be great. I think it's a pretty tree. It's one we'll have for a while.