Christmas Tree Shopping

I'm so used to buying artificial Christmas trees in Indonesia, so when my husband told me we were going to buy a real tree to put up in our home this year, I was besides myself.

First thing we got was a 'Christmas Tree Stand' - it's a dish-like device with clamps where you put your tree in. It comes in different sizes for different tree heights; we chose S because we were going for a tree that's about 180 cm tall.

Then we went to a 'Christmas tree market' - I had probably seen these in films, but to experience it myself was so awe inspiring! I felt like a kid who'd just seen all this for the first time... but then again, it WAS my first time. The first market we visited was in a store, and we didn't see anything we liked.

The second market was at the parking lot of our local supermarket, the seller was a super friendly and cheerful man. My husband told him what we were looking for and he helped pick a right tree for us. He even switched to English once he heard us conversing in English. The tree he picked for us was pretty, and he politely gestured to my husband to ask for my approval before purchasing it. I loved it, so he wrapped it in a net with the aid of a machine specially to do so. He even offered to help us load it into our car, but my husband could manage. He even provided a piece of rope to tie our trunk hood on, since we couldn't fully close it with the tree in the car. But it's no problem since our home is just about 3 minutes away.

The tree makes our home smell nice. There's fire hazard though so we have to watch out in case the lights get too hot and touch the dry leaves. We also have to water it and vacuum the fallen leaves from underneath it every now and then. But overall, I love having a real tree as a Christmas tree, for the very first time in my life.

Fully decorated, I'm fully in love with our tree:

Our decorated tree!