My family and I have been going to Gerrits Greens for as long as I could remember. We grew up with their kids. We got up, ate some breakfast, put some warm clothes on and headed to my mom and dad's house to get mom motivated to go get one. Every year my Christmas present to grandma is her tree. Sadly, it decided to rain and I hate picking out a tree in the rain.
We got everyone into the Escape and headed to grandma's to get her. Gerrits Greens isn't that far from grandmas house or our rental. In fact it's less than a mile. We found a parking spot and got out. Lynn was the first one to greet us.
I introduced Ben, we chatted for a while and grabbed our saw and started walking to the trees to pick out a good one. Last year we had a hard time finding Douglas Firs. Greg told us there really wasn't a whole lot of them to pick from because they were pretty popular over the past few seasons and he had just planted new ones which will take a few years to mature. We collectively decided to pick a new type of tree this time. The range for their trees were $18-$32 which is pretty good compared to some of the other tree farms in the area. I heard that Hunter's Farm off of Yelm Highway charges $10 a foot for their trees. If you got a 7 foot tree, which is pretty typical, it would cost you $70!!! We could get a tree of the same size at Gerrits Greens for less than $45, depending on which one you chose of course.
$70 for a Christmas tree is outrageous!! I have never paid more than $25 for a tree ever. The most expensive tree I've purchased was in Pullman with Fitzy while we were in college was $25 because they didn't have trees or Christmas tree farms and they had to be shipped in. We bought ours from the Dissmore's parking lot from some of the high school kids who were raising money for their team.
We walked around looking at all the trees and trying to figure out our preference of tree. Did we want one with a nice top? Or one that wasn't that bushy? Or had more of a trunk to it so we didn't have to saw off a bunch of the limbs? We critiqued most of the trees we thought would fit in the spot we chose at home. I had Ben pick out the tree since he hasn't gotten to the last few years. Grandma found one she liked so we helped her cut hers down Then Ben found one he liked and he cut it down while I helped hold the branches out of his face. We helped mom find a tree and I had to cut it down for her.
We carried them back to the Escape and then chatted with Lynn and Greg for a while in front of the small bon fire they had going. We ate small candy canes and drank some hot chocolate. I asked Lynn how much we owed her and she just said $18 for each of them. I know we all didn't get Doug Firs so all of us just gave her an even $20, and I spent $40 getting grandmas tree as well. Ben and Greg went over to the Escape and we tied grandma and mom's trees to the top. We told them we would be back for ours once we dropped theirs off. Lynn and Greg said that was okay. We dropped grandma's tree off first. I helped her bring it into to her house. She said she would do the rest tomorrow. Then we dropped mom off with her tree. Later I found out they didn't put the tree up until a week after we got it. It looked pretty sad since it sat out of water for too long when they actually put it up.
We drove back over there and loaded up our tree. From there we drove back out to Lacey towards home. We really didn't feel like doing anything with it so we took it out to the shed to dry off. It was pretty wet from the rain. Over the next few days I took it out of the shed, got the decorations out, the tree stand and even got it in the tree stand by myself. Granted it took two turns but I got it in straight and it didn't lean! Now is the biggest challenge...keeping my cat from eating the tree and barfing. He has been the only cat we've ever had that eats the tree and then barfs somewhere in the house. I kept a sheet in front of it with chairs and boxes to keep him from doing it. He won at least 5 times that I know of.
A lot of the stuff we had to buy. The lights (both the tree and the house), some of the garland and the rest was little decorations I got from the dollar store and the Goodwill. I found out last month that Ben and I were hosting Christmas this year. Mostly because mom and dad's house wasn't going to be ready to host everyone plus they really weren't going to attempt to try. I shrugged my shoulders and said okay because there really wasn't an alternative since Ben and I have our own place now. We were kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. Plus, working full time now was really going to help us financially with this extra expense.
I got the tree topper, the lights and the garland on the tree. I even started putting the ornaments on. Ben got a box of Christmas stuff from his mom and I had him add those to the tree. I had the tree decorated in three days. It made the house look pretty cool with all the decorations and the tree in the corner of the room we never use.
Next Adventure: Ho Ho Homicide
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