Making the Perfect Christmas Tree

We like to hunt our own Christmas tree.  No, not from a lot or from the store--from the woods.  Besides being a fun activity for everybody (even the dog), it's cheap.  Only $10 for a tree permit.  And you know I'm cheap.  Granted, if the snow isn't too deep we can easily spend that much more in gas to get to the top of the mountain where the pines are, but this year we stayed close and picked up a Pinyon pine instead.  This one.

Our ceilings aren't very tall, so our tree doesn't need to be very tall.  We figured out last year that instead of tying it to the top of the suburban in the cold, we could just stuff it inside with the kids and the dog and be on our way.  So that's what we did.  (It's on a tarp so it doesn't sap up the whole vehicle.)

 

The thing about real trees is that they're rarely perfect.  They have holes and flat sides.  The branches aren't spaced evenly around.  They're a little fatter or skinnier than you thought once you get them in your house.  You know.  So here's what we do.  We cut the tree too tall, so when we get home we have to take another foot or so off the bottom.  With that go a couple of branches.  We use those branches to fill in the empty spots on the tree.  Just whip out your screw gun and put a couple screws in each branch.  Like this:

Then for the branches that need to move over or be pulled out of the walk way we use fishing line to tie them where we want them.  Like this:

Light it up and decorate it (can you believe this little tree took 400 lights?), and voila, the perfect Christmas tree!