This year is the first year since I was a kid that I have had a real Solstice/Christmas tree. When we were little we’d get lovely small trees for our bedrooms (usually the top of a larger tree) and I just loved it! I would cry and cry when it was time for it to be taken down. My poor parents! They compromised by letting the trees sit in the backyard for a few days so we could still play with them and enjoy them.

I haven’t really bothered much with festive trees in my adult life though. Somewhere along the line I got one of those fake plastic trees that I put up a few times, but I stopped doing that a while ago. It seemed like a lot of bother and I have to admit that I find the plastic trees a little disappointing in terms of ambiance.

So, this year’s tree is very special. It is a beautiful fir tree, small enough that it fit in my Honda Accord, but big enough to be festive and lovely. Because I am currently sharing my house with my sister’s insane kitten we decided that it wouldn’t be very much fun to put the tree in the house. (I’m sure that there are only so many times a person can pick up a Christmas tree off the floor before going crazy!) We decided to put the tree in the backyard and decorate it with treats for the birds and the squirrels. We’ve decorated it with suet cakes, bird seed, popcorn, nuts and cranberries, and my friend Linda has nicknamed it the “happy bird tree.” Part of the fun is that we keep having to add more “decorations” as the old ones get munched away.