Let's visit..... (Fallon: salvaged, stats, electricity)

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by seven of nine

Hi neighbors, busy work weeks here on the prairie. Hope everyone is getting ready for the holiday season. Since downsizing in the life I am considering one of these
Pull up Christmas Trees, Instant Christmas Tree. Pre-Decorated Tree.

Oh dear, it's just not the same...

Being too cheap/lazy myself, and furthermore having nowhere to put a tree larger than a single branch, I've settled on a permanent solution -- a large clump of pinecones that fell off one of my trees (and hit me on the head!!) now sticks out of a burial urn in my dining room.

[My sister makes pottery, and is partial to tall narrow jars. They remind me of prehistoric burial urns. ]

[MTsam]

LOL...and did you guys see the other tree that hangs on the wall?

[Rickers]

OMG , those aren't for us ! We will have a real tree in our shop and we will go cut it ourselves like we always do. My wife used to make little miniature ice-cream cone decorations and they sold like hotcakes.
When I was a kid my step dad played a trick on me at Christmas once. I went for my largest present and unwrapped it. WTF ? there was another box inside, and another inside that one. I cant remember how many boxes inside of boxes there ended up being, I'm thinking about five but the last and smallest one was an old engagement ring case with a piece of salt water taffy in it !
I got a bunch of other gifts too so I enjoyed the joke. Each year he would pull a minor prank like that on one of us kids. Wadda a guy he was, I don't remember a day going by when he didn't ask one of us kids to "pull his little finger" !
He retired as a bank executive and he had never even finished the fourth grade, You can't do that these days. My real dad who turned gay and ran off with his Argentine boyfriend never ever even tossed a ball back and fourth with me, While my big ol Humpty Dumpty of a step father took us on road trips, played catch with a baseball and we were both into model railroads.
He ended up as much of a friend as he was a dad to me plus he gave me a brother, (I already had two sisters and was out numbered !)
Tobacco and Gin is what took him from us before his time should have been up.

[Montana Griz]

Originally Posted by rickers

OMG , those aren't for us ! We will have a real tree in our shop and we will go cut it ourselves like we always do.

The above "cranked up the 'ole memory wheel"...........................
Back in the early '60's when we were living up at 6750 feet in the Colorado Rockies, my wife, young daughter and I would take off on a Saturday morning (about the 1st of Dec) kinda cross-country, up toward a north facing slope about a mile away. There were 'bout "a jillion" pine trees in a 1/2 mile square area. Wife and I would take turns leading "ole Chip"---a 17 yr old 'flea-bitten Grey" (that's a color term)----with the daughter riding him.

If it was a normal year, there'd be about 6" of snow on the mountain side.
We'd usually find "the right tree" after about an hour, cut 'er down, tie a 30' length of rope on the cut end and have the daughter dally the other end around the saddle horn. We'd then head on down the mountain to the house--always make in about 1/3 the time it took us gettin' up there.

Then when we'd try setting it up in the livin' room.......it'd always be 3 feet or so too tall, so we'd shorten it up and use the extra branches for decoration on the fireplace mantel.

Did that up till about 1973 when the daughter went off to work her way through college at Colorado State..

Great memories.

[Mt.SNOW]

rickers i love stories like that, i remeber one yr having no presents under the tree and thinking wth and mom left a card and did a scavenger hunt. i love taking the kids to cut down the tree and the memories you make doing it are priceless i hope that there are some good tree farms around montana for this.
montana griz that sounds like a great christmas, sounds like some work but well worth the payoff.
reziac that sounds like an easy christmas set up..lol

[Reziac]

I'm reminded of the tree we concocted one year when we had very little money... prices on Xmas trees were way up that year (I think it was Xmas of 1969 or '70) and we just couldn't find one that both looked decent and was affordable. Finally it's 3 or 4 days before Xmas and all the tree sellers have shut down and gone home! But the lot closest to us left their unsold trees behind... and a ratty bunch they were, barely fit to feed to goats. Thin, straggly, and every which shape but the expected one. We picked out the best of the lot -- not too bad for shape but mighty thin on branches -- then harvested a bunch of broken limbs and wire trimmings, and between all this we (mostly me) managed to construct a rather good-looking tree. Covered it with the usual endless array of lights, glass trinkets, and real tin tinsel, and it turned out to be one of the best trees we ever had!

[Rickers]

I usually get my trees from the large power transmission line easements because the small trees growing there have plenty of sun so they're full and thick and they will never grow up anyway because the power company sends a crew to cut the trees that are starting to encroach on the easement zone.
You don't have to get a forest service or state lands permit and the power company is seldom around to say anything about it. Just go get your tree. We may buy a tree this year though as we would have to spend more in gas going up into the mountains for one now that we live in the prairie.

[popcorn247]

Ahhhhh.....Christmas in south Florida still doesn't feel like Christmas. I need cold, snow, etc. not warm sunny beach weather.....

[Mt-7]

The originality of the folks here on the porch!
ok who remembers these?

Man we had more fun whacking each other over the head and having sword fights. I would love to have the one from my childhood.

[MTsam]

Oh absolutely! My grandparents had one up every year! Thanks for triggering a trip down memory lane...