And with the passing of another beautiful Thanksgiving day comes the start of a wonderful time of the year. There always seems to be a great number of traditions during the holiday season and I love each and every one of them. On top of the list of traditions is always picking and decorating the Christmas tree. I’ve had artificial trees in the past – as a penniless grad school student I’ve celebrated Christmas with a 2-foot tree – but I always get the biggest thrill out of adventuring to a farm and picking out a live tree to chop down.
Last year we stuck close to Greenville and got our tree at Mystic Farms but this year we decided to take it a step further and trek up into the Great Smokey Mountains to Boyd Christmas Tree Farms to find a Fraser Fur tree for the Loft.
After a winding mountain drive, we turned down a gravel road and peered up at beautiful mountainsides filled with Christmas trees and happy faces. There were tents filled with hot chocolate and cookies and Santa’s sleigh and ombre trees at the bottom of the mountain and elegant cabins for rent – all dolled up in their Christmas finest – dotting the landscape.
The trees were beautiful – true evergreens with a scent so rich I’ll never need to burn a candle in the loft again! We choose a beautiful 9-foot tree and the kind workers soon had it felled and at the bottom of the hill for us to load up and take back home.
It was a beautiful drive back home through the NC mountains – with the sun slowly setting and the hillsides basking in the remaining warmth of the November sun. How are you adventuring this holiday season? How wonderful are the traditions that can remain the same (like getting a real tree) but the adventures can change along with the year!
Of course, the day was made even sweeter by the proposal of two of our best friends – and it was such an honor to be able to play a small part in it!
