In the UK, I have bought real Christmas trees from DIY stores like B&Q or Homebase. My wife was never happy with what was on offer. She saw the trees on sale there as “Charlie Brown Trees”. For those not familiar with the work of the late Charles Schulz, follow this link and look at the twig by Snoopy’s kennel.
You can trees from similar stores as well as supermarkets here in the US. Last weekend, though, we went to a tree farm in search of a tree. The farm grows its own trees, but since the traditional fir trees do not grow at this latitude and low altitude, they also bring tress in from Oregon. If you want one of their own trees, they will provide you with a saw and you can go pick your own. In addition to the trees and other Christmas ornaments, they had a Santa sleigh ride, an indoor nativity scene, Christmas music playing, and plenty of food and drink on sale.
Hot Spiced Cider was on sale and being drunk by people of all ages. Before an alarming picture of teenagers off their head on cider, wielding saws comes to the mind of any UK readers; I should point out that here in the US cider is non-alcoholic. Judging by the amount of effort that people were expending in cutting down their trees, those blades were not the sharpest.
Since the native trees did not like right, and none of the pre cut trees from up North were the right shape we left without a tree. There were several other places selling trees between home and this place, but since this was by far the largest we felt that it was unlikely that they had a better choice, so we shall probably buy a fake, which will be perfectly shaped. I would also be reluctant to try the place closest to us, as they were advertising “Economy Tree”; I think that these were what the large farm more honestly labeled as their “Charlie Brown Trees”, a collection of half bare, lopsided bushes that really do not qualify as tree.
