tree blessings

We went out the other day to hunt for our Christmas tree and found a beauty. We have been getting our Christmas trees off our land for the past few years. We feel pretty blessed with our abundance of the lovely green friends, but feel some guilt chopping them down. We ease it by only choosing trees that need to be cut, either to clear a path, or to thin out a section. Ari is sitting in front of our tree here, it is clumped together with a bunch of other small trees, so cutting it was giving the other trees a chance. Or so we tell ourselves.

We brought a little picnic into the woods and ate it at the base of the tree before we cut it. Something about the smell of spiced tea outside on a winter day is pretty lovely and food always tastes best after a good walk through the woods.

We thanked the tree before cutting it- feeling grateful for the living thing we were taking from the woods into our home. Ari called out "thank you tree for coming to our house." I'm sure it understood. We plan to decorate it today, now that the ice and snow have melted from the branches. So off we go to drag out the Christmas boxes and crank the holiday music. Fa lalalala.