Getting a Tree

We looked all over the city center for where Christmas trees were being sold. They were hard to find! Even though in the Christmas market they were tied to every pole available, we couldn't find them for sale. The simple explanation is that Christmas trees are hard to find in early December because according to German tradition, they don't put up a tree until Christmas Eve. Hence, we didn't see many trees available until later into December. We didn't actually purchase ours until the 15th which felt very late for us as Americans but oh so early living in Germany.

Tracy rode my bike home so that he could easily put down his foot when
needing to stop at lights.

Friends told us that Max Bahr had trees for sale. That is about a five kilometer ride away so not too bad but longer than desired when hauling a tree home! Max Bahr is like Home Depot, and I must confess that all of us got a bit homesick walking into that store! The smells were so much like home! Strange, I know, but it was so fun for all of us to smell Home Depot smells.

Max Bahr had lots of trees from which to select. Of course, I wanted the ten foot tree but at over 65 Euros....well, maybe something smaller. We have the perfect front window for a big, beautiful tree but alas, we purchased one shorter than me. Our smallest tree yet. It looked a bit Charlie Brown but at least it was real and at least it didn't cost us our weekly food budget! In order to compensate for the lack of height, we stood it on top of several books. Something that I swore I would NEVER do. It seems like little-old-lady. It's just plain wrong to have to put your tree up on something to add height to it!

Joel, Josiah and Noah trying to get it into the stand. As
is obvious in this photo, the tree is barely taller than
Josiah. We were all a bit shocked by its smallness. It
just seemed so large coming back on the bike. I guess
it's good that I didn't push for the ten-footer!

So a foot plus off the ground helped, but you can tell that
it is not quite shaped evenly - we hid that side to the windows.

Noah's biggest concern with the tree was that we didn't have a star for on top. So while at Max Bahr, we also purchased some twine. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a twine star that I thought I could make. Adapted a bit because of using cardboard instead of wood for a frame, I made it work but shortly after Christmas, it began unraveling. As much as Noah wants to keep that star, it won't be making the trip home. But it did make a nice tree topper this year.

And then for lights. I thought ahead and brought lights with me. Tracy was a bit in disbelief when I pulled out lights from home. I brought lights, he brought books. Good idea, right? Not quite. First of all, I forgot that something like lights need to be plugged into a transformer not just an adapter. Oops. So we blew a strand or two that way. Those were the colored lights that the boys had in their rooms. Because one of our traditions is that they always have colored lights in their rooms at Christmas, I went and bought a new strand of 50 lights for each of the boys' rooms. Big spender! The lights here are very expensive and being a one-shot deal, we didn't feel the need for strands of more than that. More like, I didn't feel the need to spend more. Back to the tree lights though. I asked my parents to bring lights along with them because we did have a transformer. I thankfully thought to check the lights with the transformer before stringing them on the tree. Good thing as we figured out that the fuse in the transformer was blown. My next adventure was trying to find an electronics store that sold the fuse I needed. Even though I asked for directions a couple of times, I still had to search some time for the store. Maybe like half of a morning if I would choose to be honest. For just 80 Euro cents, I had what I needed. And that one blew immediately, too. Great. I would have saved myself a lot of time and energy had I simply purchased lights and given them as a blessing to someone else when we leave. Long story shortened, we used the colored lights from the boys' rooms for the tree. Yes, our tree was that small that 100 lights were enough! I've since learned that we should have just used candles - that's the German tradition. Maybe next year....actually, Tracy already axed that idea since our house is a log cabin.

Decorations were scarce but that made the ones we had very special. Our cousins in California sent us a Christmas package with a few ornaments with which to decorate. Our good friends in Durham sent us a special ornament with North Carolina on it as a touch of home. Josiah and Noah got busy and made some ornaments as well which they are hoping make the trip home. To finish out the decorations, our friends, Jamie and Susan, also shared some red Christmas balls with us.

Noah made this candle out of clothespins at school. 

One of several ornaments from Charlie and Andie,
our California cousins.

Our friends, Brian and Misty Young, sent us this
North Carolina ornament.

Josiah created this from a collection of "craft" things
that we have gathered during our time here.

We probably have more memories of this particular tree than any other. And as a result, it will probably go down as one of our favorites. Charlie Brown or not, we were thankful to have one.