Fraser Fir


I used the prospect of eating at Famous Dave's later in the night as bait and got Julia and Carly to come with me to pick out our Christmas tree sunday afternoon.  We get our tree from the Hertz family who has been selling trees in the back lot of the Midway BP for years.  They are friendly, offer great full trees, and tie up your new domesticated piece of the forest on your car without so much as a grimace.  Douglas and Balsam fir run as cheap as 15 dollars and Frasers all run at 40, not bad.  I wondered, why are Fraser's considered the choice tree? One of the main reasons, besides holding a nice triangular shape, is that their needles tend to retain their softness and don't prick the kids' hands as they set up ornaments.  Here is ours, undecorated, in our new fireplace living room, Quarry Lane:

The standing of trees for the sake of Christmas time celebrations goes back as far as 15th century Germany in guild halls to be "enjoyed by the apprentices and children." In the beginning there were no personalized plastic discs and or lit orbs but instead trees were often lined with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers."  Hmmmm, an edible XMas tree.  Now we're talking.

Finished tree pics to come – Famous Dave's stay on call....