Thank goodness for Christmas trees

We arrived home yesterday evening with our Christmas tree. Now, normally this is a process I don't particularly look forward to for two reasons:

1) Carrying a tree into our house and getting it properly set and secured in the tree stand is no easy task.
B) I'm allergic to anything that exists, so lying with my face on the carpeted floor while pine needles fall into my ears does not put me at my nasal best.
3) I can't see the tv from the right end of the couch anymore.

So, it was with an apprehensive heart that I dragged the tree out of the back of the truck to make a fresh cut and get it ready to take inside.

I wandered my garage, trying to select the proper rotating blade with which to whack an inch off the height of my tree sold by height. I didn't feel like using a handsaw, the jigsaw would take forever and the blade wasn't long enough. A sawsall seemed like overkill, but the skilsaw is too small a diameter. I could bring the chopsaw out, but I would feel really silly cutting a christmas tree with a chopsaw. The radial arm saw was no better. I had just resigned myself to using the skilsaw in two passes when I had a revelation...

I have a saw made for cutting trees, and I've never gotten to use it in December before.

If our gate wasn't already falling off our hinges, it would be now. So, there I was, excitedly waving my hands around our pitch black shed, trying to find the chainsaw. There - my hands got covered in grease off to my left. That must be it. In 20 seconds flat I was in the front yard pulling the starter. Like a hot knife through butter, I molded the bottom of our christmas tree as only a man with a chainsaw in December can. Of course the cut only took a few seconds. I needed to cut more. Those branches at the bottom were too low, surely they needed to surrender to my chain of tree chomping teeth. The chainsaw roared to life once again!

It was a sad moment, but I had to shut the saw down once again. I promised it that I would make sure it had plenty of wood to cut this summer. *Sigh*

In with the tree I went... as I reached the top of the stairs, my 2 year old daughter said, "That's a really big tree! That a HUMONGOUS tree!"

And how can you not enjoy mounting the tree in the stand when she gets down under it with you - "Look Daddy! You see? You see the HUMONGOUS tree? It's a green tree!"

She's going to go nuts when we cover the tree with lights tonight.

-The Krunchy Krab