Christmas Tree Shopping!

Cut, potted or stands? These options aren't normally associated with Christmas tree shopping in California, so I was a little bit confused about all the options I kept reading about on the local tree farms' websites in Birmingham.

Normally, the only decision our family ever made when picking out a tree was what height the tree should be--type of tree wasn't even an option. I think my mom always had a preference for Noble Firs, so that's what we had, and it became our family tradition. We always headed straight for the Noble Fir section of the tree lot and if they had a meager selection of acceptable (read 'full') trees, we moved on to the next lot a few minutes drive away.

Typically, the trees I encountered in California's lots were pre-cut, with a wooden "X" nailed to the bottom, and were displayed standing in neat lines like soldiers waiting for inspection. No excessive handling of the trees was required--we simply strolled down the rows of trees to see which trees were the right height and fullness.

This afternoon D and I drove over to Wood Farm's Christmas Tree Farm, near Shirley, to pick out a Christmas tree for the house. There don't appear to be too many large Christmas tree lots around our neck of town (or generally in the city), so we are lucky that this place is only about 5 minutes from our house. Upon arriving at the tree farm; however, I soon realized this may not be as easy an experience as I was used to.

First, there was a choice between cut, potted or stand trees. The "cut" trees were most like the regular American trees, but instead of having an "X" base on them so they could stand up freely on their own, they were lying all over the place, ungrouped by height at all--some were lying on the ground in loose stacks, some were leaned against fences several trees deep, and others were in small metal stands over a foot off the ground, so the trees' true height wasn't discernible until you removed it from the stand. These 'cut' trees were difficult to evaluate because so many of the trees were hidden behind or beneath the stacks, and getting to them was such an effort.

We went inside to check out the other tree options, and discovered that you could also buy a 'potted' tree with it's roots potted inside the soil of a bright red bucket, or a 'stand' tree, with the roots all showing, that you screw into a special stand and allow the roots to spread out inside the bowl. Apparently, you can attempt to replant either of these tree types in your own garden after the holidays, but the tree farm won't guarantee that the tree will survive. Although this was an attractive 'eco' option, we don't have any space in our garden for another large tree and the trees weren't grouped by type or height or price inside, so we kept wandering and wandering without being able to hone in on the type we wanted.

We ultimately wandered back outside and (to D's relief) I finally settled on a 6 foot, cut Noble Fir and a cheap stand. It needed some trimming down with the clippers at home, because it's really full, but we figured too full was better than too sparse! Now for the decorating....