Our Christmas Tree

It is a running joke in the Brenna family that I hate Christmas tree shopping. I may have described it before, but our memories have morphed into one recurring episode: We choose to hunt for a tree on the coldest day of the year. I am underdressed as usual. My parents choose a new Christmas tree farm that promises the best trees. When we venture into the lot, we discover one tree that we all love, but my mom insists we must look around to make sure it is the right one. Then my family starts to take sadistic pleasure in my negative attitude by throwing snow at me. My mom finds a "perfect" tree at the other end of the lot, but by the time we gather everyone together to assess it, someone else is cutting it down. Defeated, we go back and cut down the first tree we found.

It probably only happened like this once or twice, but I gained such a reputation that when we flew back for Christmas in 2003 and I was in a friend's wedding, my mom said, "Ok, so we'll take the kids to get the tree while you're at the wedding," to which I replied, "You can't get the tree without me!" No one was more surprised than me at that statement.

Well, our Christmas tree outing was quite different here. I might grow to like it. Our artificial tree that we purchased in Asia 8 years ago for the bargain price of $12 finally bit the dust last year. We decided to spring (and I mean spring) for a real one. The kids were thrilled. We went to one of the nurseries on Thompson Road where trees stood in rank according to their height. Even within height (we chose a 5-6') there was quite a variation. I think we got the best of the bunch.

Erik was a bit out of sorts (and if you know Erik, you know things have to be seriously wrong for that to happen) because the tree stand we bought leaked. He drove back and got them to replace it, and now our beautiful tree is filling the front window. This is the first year in Singapore that we've had space for a tree this size! I'll post decorated tree pictures as soon as I get my camera's battery charger back from its trip to a friend's house, and after we get more lights. You can never have enough lights.