Our Christmas Tree

Thanksgiving weekend is always filled with lots of activities in almost every household. It starts off with Black Friday, which signals in the start of the holiday shopping season.

I am not much of a shopper, and Black Friday was never an event I got excited about. That Sunday, though, we did check out Paragon in Livermore to see what everyone's talking about. You already know what my sentiments are on this.

When we got back from Paragon, we passed by this lot a couple of blocks from the house which sold live Christmas trees. We decided to get an early start on the holiday preparations and planned on stopping by. First, we had to drop off our son at home, then did a quick grocery run.

Last year, we were in NYC for Christmas, and in Manila the year before. And because of these, we never bought a tree, and didn't decorate. In years prior, friends bought trees for us. This year, we made sure we did it ourselves. And so, the excitement.

On the way back, we stopped by and looked around. After a brief education on the type of trees available, we went on our search for the perfect tree. Up and down the 3-4 rows of trees of different shapes and sizes could be a little confusing. They all looked alike to me. I let the wife do the choosing.

Her first choice, I thought, was HUGE. It was a 6-7 footer, but it looked more than 8 feet to me. I convinced her that we wouldn't be able to fit the tree through the door. Next, was something smaller. It seemed perfect, but it looked a little different. It looked dry.

Time was running out. We needed to make a choice soon because we still had to take our son to his volleyball practice at Mission HS. Finally, we found one -- a decent 5-6 footer (close to 7 feet if you asked me). We had it set aside, but promised to return after 10 minutes or so.

We did come back and paid for it. We also found out that those trees were being sold by a non-profit organization called, Young Life, who's objective is to keep young adults from going astray. With the tree, plus a matching metal stand, we added a little more and made a donation to this organization.

Since the tree was BIG, we needed a pick-up or an SUV to haul it in. Our friend, Mike R, was so gracious enough to help. I met him the next day after work to pick up the tree. He brought his Suburban and the tree fit just perfectly.

Up for more than week, our tree had not been decorated. The weekdays were just too long, and the following weekend, we were in Sacramento for the volleyball tournament at Florin HS.

We got a break in the week, and, finally, decorated it, as well as for the rest of the house. As a final touch, our son placed the star on the top of the tree, and the task was completed. The Christmas tree stands by the window of the front-facing living room for everyone to see.