Merry Merry, Dear Farmgirl Readers! This year flew by like a flash, for sure! With only three weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the season has had a bit more “hustle and bustle” than past years, but I LOVE it! Home smells so delicious with all the holiday cooking and baking, and though the days are short, the evenings are cozy with holiday lights and decor.
With Thanksgiving falling so late, we decided to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving this season, and get our tree that weekend. It’s still hard to believe that this year marked fifteen years blogging here, as the Suburban Farmgirl! One of my first ever blogs, in December 2010, was titled, “To Tree or Not to Tree”. It was about the decision to go from a fake tree my husband hated, to a real one, and the funny antics that ensued from our first real tree.
For years, we went ‘round the corner to my neighbor’s farm to cut our tree. After she passed, the new owners decided not to carry on the tradition of the tree farm, but we found another local farm that we love, and have been going there ever since.
We make a day out of it – after breakfast we head out to the farm. We no longer cut our own tree down, but choose a fresh cut one, check out the holiday store in the “barn”, and visit the farm’s vineyard store. It’s become a fun family tradition, with the tree stuffed in the inside of the car for the ride home. We are “The Griswolds”!
This year’s tree is one of the biggest, fluffiest trees ever! Back home, we put the tree in the stand…only to have it fall over. The three of us worked as a team, my daughter and I holding the trunk, while my husband stretched beneath the tree, adjusting the stand. The tree leaned, and slowly fell down a few times more, once even after we decorated it, making a huge mess – water, ornaments, and needles spilling onto the carpet. The frustrated thought went through my head a few times, that maybe… just maybe, I would get a faux tree next year. At one point, I thought it might crash through the window. Finally, my husband secured it in the stand straight and tight, and we bolted it to the wall on the other side. You can’t see the bolts or the line, so it’s fine {wink wink}.
In the end, with the tree up and lit, I knew once again that getting a farm fresh tree is the best for us. It smells amazing and looks so cozy. Maybe next year we should get a new tree stand?
Speaking of tree stands, I love decorating with vintage ones. The lithographed ones are my favorite. Metal inside and out, with beautiful graphics, they were popular in the fifties and needed no “skirt”. I can’t imagine putting a tree in one, however!
Likewise, can you imagine ever using this little fifties stand for an actual tree? Water, a hot C9 Christmas bulb and electricity – yikes! What a combo! (We only use a “cool” LED light in it). The graphics are so sweet and whimsical – why I love all things “vintage”. Decorating vintage style makes home feel cozier and jolly. The outside world may be hectic, but inside my home, it’s 19-something!
So much has changed in the last fifteen years since those first blogs, but some things remain the same. We visited the St. George’s Episcopal Gingerbread Village, in the quaint town of Middlebury, Connecticut. In its FIFTY-SEVENTH year, we have been going for as long as I can remember, and I have written blogs about it in past years. This year did not disappoint, and while we are always “wowed”, the gingerbread castle this year was jaw-dropping spectacular!
Winter has set in, and with the darker, shorter days, we see more wildlife. We often hear coyotes at night; it is at once beautiful and unnerving. We also spied this beauty in our yard one morning. Healthy and fluffy, we watched him sniff and casually walk around the yard (although I did eventually step on to the deck eventually and “shoo” him away. I don’t want him to get too comfortable here. My pets and chickens come first! Still, it was awesome to see).
We also had that weird, distinct feeling we were being watched one evening when we were hanging up outside Christmas lights…ha ha!
As we close another year, I wish you all peace, love, and all the joys of the holiday season. Thank you all for being here with me the past fifteen years. Farmgirls are the best! “See” you in 2026!
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