Christmas Trees -- Shop for a Christmas Tree

Shopping for a Christmas tree should be a lot of fun. Usually there are Christmas Tree Lots around where you can buy a real Christmas Tree. Real Christmas trees are nice because of the pine smell and uniqueness of each tree.  However, a real Christmas tree only last one Christmas, can dry out fast, and may be heavy.

An artificial Christmas tree will last for many years to come.  Artificial Christmas trees come in all shapes and sizes.  Artificial Christmas trees even come in different colors -- white, green, gold, silver, etc. Some artificial Christmas trees come with lights and can be easily folded for storage.

No matter what type of Christmas tree you buy make sure it will fit into your house. 

This story was shared with me by a friend.

 Life brings different challenges. Mothers often have to be creative, especially during the holiday season. I remember one Christmas as a young girl around 10 years old, business was slow for my self-employed father. We didn't have a lot of money for Christmas and we didn't have any credit cards. Christmas was soon approaching and we hadn't even put up a Christmas tree. My parents had stopped at the store and decided the price of trees were too high this year to get one. We had a tradition of putting up the Christmas tree early in December. My brother, sisters, and I were rather disappointed. Our friends at school all buzzed with the excitement of the season and the gifts and the Christmas tress that they would be getting. We felt a little left out. 

My mother recognizing our discouragement, decided to solve our problem through her creativeness. One day she went out behind our backyard fence. The weeds had grown more than 6 feet tall in the vacant lot and were brown and dry. She dug up the best and fullest looking weed. Next, she found an old spray can of gold paint and painted this weed. She put the Christmas weed into our Christmas tree stand and decorated it with our Christmas ornaments, garland, and a star for the top of the Christmas tree weed. She placed our lovely Christmas tree weed on our large front screened porch for all to see. 

The Christmas tree weed looked rather nice, although it was not very full. We as children didn't know what to think. Should we be embarrassed to have a weed for a Christmas tree? What would the neighbors think? It was quite fun to have an unusual tree. When friends stopped in, they commented on our nice tree. They said it was lovely. Our faces turned red when my mom told them it was really a weed. My mother didn't seem to mind. She enjoyed the Christmas weed and the conversation with friends. That year Christmas was fun. We may not have had a lot of gifts, but we had plenty of food and visits with friends. We gained another good Christmas memory and a wonderful story of the Christmas weed to tell our own children.