Last night I helped my Mom put up her Christmas tree. A few years ago she bought an artificial tree which actually looks pretty nice. Personally I enjoy the smell of a fresh tree, and the ritual of going out to get one. But for her it was just too much trouble I think.

One of my fondest childhood memories was getting a Christmas tree when I lived in California. Here in Wisconsin, most people who get a fresh tree go out to a grocery store, or a garden center where there is a mini tree store set up in the parking lot. Out in Santa Barbara, there were a lot more tree farms that were an easy distance to travel to. One of them had a deal with Dos Pueblos High School to help them as part of a fund raiser if I recall. So we would drive out to this tree farm in Winchester Canyon to cut our own tree. You'd take a truck out to the section of the farm where they were growing the style tree you wanted with your gigantic measuring pole and bow saw and hunt down the perfect tree. I'd crawl underneath it and cut it down, and we'd drag it home and set it up. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Now as I sit here at Starbucks writing this post, I'm reminded of yet another reason why I don't like the artificial tree my Mom has. She bought one with some kind of sparkly stuff on the ends of the "branches". I'm not sure if it was supposed to look like snow, or flocking or what. But now after a few years, the majority of the sparkles are in the box she stores it in, on the floor after I set it up the tree for her, or on me this morning. It seems no matter how many times I shower, I still end up with one or two flecks of the stuff on me. Theres nothing quite as bad as looking in the mirror and seeing that you had one of those on your cheek the whole day making you look like a 12 year old girl.