Oh Cincy Tree, Oh Cincy Tree

2020 is CRAP. And no where is that more apparent recently than the Christmas Tree erected on Fountain Square in Cincinnati. Yikes. It looks like they fixed it up, but with what? The corpses of 20 other trees?

How it started How it’s going#CincinnatiChristmasTree #wlwt pic.twitter.com/8t08ikQWU9

— Jatara McGee WLWT (@jatara_) November 10, 2020

Every woman reading this knows what happened. They sent men to get this tree. The men drove to the place where they were supposed to procure the important symbol of the holidays for a major metropolitan area and said, "how 'bout this one." They all agreed that this one was the easiest to cut and easiest to load, so back they went to Cincinnati. Somewhere outside of town they lost half of it, but still it was a tree. Mission accomplished.

If women had been involved in selecting the Cincy Tree, they would have viewed all the trees in southwest Ohio, made multiple visits to each. And then selected the first one they saw originally. But also bought a second one in a smaller size, in case it would fit better later. But at least it would not have been that janky thing.

I am a Christmas purist. I don't like decorating pre-Thanksgiving. I won't listen to the music until the calendar says December. I must have a real, actual Christmas tree in my house that I decorate with a curated set of decorations reflecting family memories. Not matching bulbs. Are you a Macy's?

But last year I waited a little too long to get my real tree. After putting off his suggestion that we go ahead and get our tree in November, NOVEMBER! I finally sent Husband unsupervised to pick out the family tree for our fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that my Christmas purity is only upstaged by my unwillingness to pay $70 at a tree farm. Anyway, heading out in the family truck to pick the perfect tree from the Tractor Supply parking lot and then heading inside to get some raccoon traps and heat lamps for your baby pigs is very authentic and very country.

Except for last year. I have to imagine Husband recreating the scene from Charlie Brown, wandering through the lot, past all those fake commercial trees to see the stars shine down on this one. It's not such a bad little tree, is it?

Yes it was.  It was the Charlie Browniest of trees. Even when decorated it wasn't that great, but I will give it credit, it created a LOT of room for gifts.

Husband would like me to note that even though "supply" is the middle name of the Tractor Supply Company, the actual supply of Christmas trees was next to nothing at the "late date" of... checking calendars... the first Saturday in December!

So we will head out earlier this year to get our fresh pine and we will cut off the end, stick it in a bucket and then use the blower (hair dryer for livestock) to get 1,000 of the 1 million dead pine needles out of the tree. And then we will bring it in the house when I have decided Christmas can commence.