Wouldn’t you know it? We had a Christmas tree saga.

We got going early yesterday morning and drove to the nursery where I buy my plants and where we buy our tree. Every year. We’ve been buying trees there for 16 years. Usually, we get a tree during the second week of December, though during Covid and lockdown, we got one earlier because we needed the lights and cheer. So, my point is that buying at this time is nothing new to us. Still a couple of weeks away from Christmas, but not last minute.

We drove to the nursery and I commented that there weren’t many cars there, which was unusual. Then we parked. And stared at a completely empty tree lot. “Where are all the trees?” I said. I briefly though they might have moved them to another part of the property. But no, there was nothing.

When we went inside to ask what the heck was going on, they said they ran out. There is apparently a shortage of trees this year, which a lot of you probably know about, but I’ve been in a filming bubble and had heard absolutely nothing about it. We were stunned. We’ve purchased even later than the 12th and there were always scads of trees on their lot. They suggested we go to another local business  because they still had a few trees left. When we arrived there, all they had were Douglas firs, not Frasier firs, which is what we always get. I’m not a fan of Douglas firs – the branches aren’t very strong – but we were panicked, so we bought a small, but wide tree. Put it on top of the car, took it home.

It wouldn’t fit in our stand.

Evidence:

The hole in the bottom of the tree had been drilled off center and it wouldn’t stand up. We knew we were going to have to get another kind of tree stand, so after a bite to eat, we were back in the car on our way to Lowes. When we pulled in that parking lot, we saw people carrying trees to their cars, so, instead of buying a stand immediately, we headed to the trees. They had a fair amount remaining and they were Frasier firs. We grabbed one, bought a new stand because this tree didn’t have a hole in the bottom, and drove home with yet another tree on top of the car. The first tree is now in a zinc bucket full of water and Don has secured it to the porch. We’re going to put lights on it this afternoon.

The second tree.

Not to mention, we went to our storage facility to pick up all the bins full of ornaments and forgot one of them, so we’ll have to go back there tomorrow and get the missing bin. We will decorate the tree tomorrow.

All of this was exhausting simply because I was already very tired, as was Don, who spent two whole days cleaning the house in preparation for my return, bless him. So today, except for putting the lights on the porch and the porch tree, we’re taking it easy.

We watched Alien  last night, one of our favorite movies.

Zoe. Elena carved her face beautifully. The eyebrows! The worried look! (She reminds me of me as a little girl. My hair was the same color, but longer, and I had the bangs and the worried look.) All my girls have their own individual look, down to the lips and nose and eyebrows.

My caption for this photo (on my Blythe IG account) was:

“Sophie (on the left) remembering that wonderful month when she was an only child.”

I get it, Sophie. I get it.

Note that I cut Maeve’s bangs. They were too long

The entire time I was gone, I had very little time to read. I did read one book – Louise Penny’s latest. In fact, I finished it on my last day there. I loved it, but wish I had had more uninterrupted time in which to read it. As it was, my experience was a choppy one. I don’t know that I think it’s her best, but every book she writes is excellent and powerful and full of humanity. And it’s really silly to try to pick out her best when every one of them is a gem.

Okay.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.