Thinking About Cutting Down Your Own Christmas Tree?

When my brother first pitched the idea of cutting down our own Christmas tree for Christmas, I was hesitant. I was thinking that we could get a fake tree, and spare the life of a tree that has been growing for 15 years or more. I find it wasteful to cut down a tree that has been growing for so long, only to have it die in the living room for less than a months worth of visual enjoyment.

After pitching my fake tree idea though, the majority had spoken. 'No way in hell are we getting a plastic tree!' So it was me against 4 others. I lost.

It was not long till I found myself standing outside of a tree farm, freezing my keester off as everyone searched about the farm for the 'perfect tree', as they called it.

My brother of course found the perfect tree. The tree was large, extremely full, and in my opinion too goddamn big for our living room. But hey, who am I to argue? I'd lose against the majority; again.
I watched as everyone took turns trying to axe down the tree. I guess they thought initially that cutting down a tree would be easy. A few strokes of the axe, and whammo...we'd be on our happy little way.


First and foremost chopping down your own tree is a sticky job. Sap literately gets everywhere. Not only that the cut is not going to come out even unless you are some sort of samurai warrior with a sword so sharp it could split a piece of falling hair in half.

You don't get a samurai though to help you, nor do you get to use a magical sword. So the trunk is going to get hacked, and it's going to be as crooked as hell. I knew this, and I silently laughed as I imagined these yoyo's trying to put this sucker into our tree stand. Good luck folks!
 
After about 30 minutes of hacking at the trunk (which was extremely hard to find, because the trees bottom limbs cover it quite well) the tree finally began to slowly take it's short flight to the ground.

'TIMBER'.
 
The Set Up:
 
Cutting down the tree for them was fun. However the happy smiles all disappeared when we got home and tried setting the thing up. We already had the stand all set up... now all we had to do was plop down the tree....and...

'oh emm gee, look at that...it doesn't fit!'

Not only did it not fit, but the tree was too big in width to look acceptable in our sized living room. The tree was an absolute monstrosity.

Before figuring out what to do with the width of the tree though, they all had to figure out how the hell they were going to shove this tree into the stand. Due to the horrible cut on the trunk, they had to actually use a power saw (or whatever tool they used) to cut limbs from the bottom of it, and shave down the trunk.

This took them about 45 minutes. The ritual of shaving the trunk included a lot of cussing, and some physical violence. After the trees trunk was shaved down to the appropriate size, they then set it up in the stand.

Tah-dddaaaaahhh!!!! It did work. However the tree looked like a hot mess. It was crooked, too thick, and too fat. It took up more than half of the living room. Finally they began to pass some sensible judgment on it.

"It looks like shi--"

"Ugh"

"Ew, God, we she of left it outside!"

'Told you so'. was all I could add.

After realizing the tree was not meant for our home, they then decided to trim it's bushiness. Due to the fact that no one in my family has any sort of tree trimming education, the ending result was a crooked, ugly tree.

The tree had been stripped of its natural beauty. The tree belonged outside, in the ground, with its roots attached. Yet here it was hacked at, chopped at, and looking like a hot mess.

The entire event was nothing more than a giant wasteful waste of time. If they were so dead set on getting a real tree they could of went to the Home Depot and bought a tree that had already been cut down. So many trees go to waste after the holidays... why add to the pile?

Next year we most likely will be getting a fake one that will last for years. They make trees that look 100% authentic, and best of all, the fake trees last for years, and set up is a breeze.

So I will ask one final question. Are you and your family thinking about cutting down your own tree? If so reconsider it. The work is tedious, and the result is not quite what you may of had in mind.

I myself find it wasteful and selfish to cut down a tree that had been growing for so long, only to be cut down and used for a month, then tossed to the curb.