Life As Nutz: Christmas Spirit

There are so many benefits to living in North Carolina. I've talked about a lot of them in past blog posts; warmer weather, bigger apartment, fresh/local produce, access to nature... Well, the arrival of the holidays highlighted another benefit, real Christmas Trees!!! For the past six years I have erected a massive, very expensive, deluxe tree:

Okay, so obviously that tree was none of those things, but it is still very special to me. I vividly remember going to Wal-Mart with my mom over the 2004 Thanksgiving holiday. It was going to be my first holiday season living in New York City and I wanted to have some Christmas spirit in my tiny, bleak, studio apartment on the upper east side. I think I paid $9.97 for the tree and bought an additional $10 or so in lights and ornaments. I hauled it all the way back to New York via the bus from Portland to Boston and then another bus from Boston to NYC. What a trek! But you know what, it was totally worth it. That little guy and I have celebrated six Christmas' together and we're going on seven this year:

There's our fake tree with our little guy, Riley, in our new place. And in the opposite corner of the apartment we put up our first real Christmas tree:

It was a little bit of a challenge getting it home in our car, but a tarp and a couple of bungee cords did the trick. We decorated it a little bit at a time throughout the week and by the weekend we had a tree that would make our families proud. A few other decorations around the apartment, and it's really starting to look a lot like Christmas.