A year after . . .

. . . The Saga of the Two Trees:

We had a much better tree hunting experience this year.

First off, there was no way we were putting our dog at risk again, so he stayed home.

Secondly, there was no way we were putting my wife's surgically repaired knee at risk, especially with our vacation on tap for the following week, so she stayed home, too.  She and the dog kept each other company.

Thirdly, because we were leaving on vacation and would be gone the next two weekends, we got our tree earlier in the season than we ever have before.  The selection was way better, and middle daughter and I found a pretty nice tree after only about ten minutes of walking and another five or ten of looking.

I was a little concerned that cutting it down so early in the season would cause it to start dropping needles pretty badly before we were ready to take it down, but that wasn't the case.  It held up really well.  The decision to use the stand with the larger reservoir proved fortuitous ("for-chew-ishus," as Bert said in Mary Poppins?) when our daughter had to quit taking care of it while she was in the hospital and we were still out of town.  It had slowed its uptake by then, and the stand never ran dry.  Still, we didn't leave it up through Epiphany as we have in past years, but took it out on Saturday of that weekend instead.

So it looks like the secret to finding a suitable tree isn't to go on a bitterly cold day, as I'd concluded in the past - it was actually pretty nice day on December 1st, when we got it.  Rather, in the future we're just going to have to go before everyone else does!