Thanksgiving is over, which means it’s Christmas season!
(Thanksgiving comes BEFORE Christmas, this is a hill I will die on.)
Following our hastily-abandoned moving plans, Ryan and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for his parents and a few friends at our apartment, tore down our fall decor and hiked out into the forest for our second-straight year of cutting down our Christmas tree!
Last year, we grabbed a permit for the Coconino National Forest’s Mogollon Rim Ranger District — the district Ryan works on of the forest we both work for.
We weren’t fast enough to snag a Coconino permit this year (permits usually sell out within the first few hours), so we elected to get a permit on the neighboring Kaibab National Forest instead.
We’d originally planned to get our permit and head out to find a tree Saturday while taking our holiday card photos, but rec.gov’s payment processing system was down, so we had to wait until Sunday to get our tree.
We did get dressed up and head out to take our holiday card photos Saturday, though, while Friday’s snow was still on display!
Luckily, rec.gov’s payment processing system was back online Sunday, so we bought a permit, hopped in Ryan’s Tacoma and headed out to the Williams Ranger District of the Kaibab.
The Kaibab’s rules are a little different than the Coconino’s. Last year, we were confined to a small pocket of well-marked Christmas tree cutting areas, and that was it.
The Kaibab lets you cut from wherever — as long as you’re not cutting on private property or in a few restricted areas, such as wilderness areas.
The Kaibab permit included a species map so we could look at it and see where we were likely to find fir and spruce trees. We used that map and found our tree at the base of the Kendrick Mountain Wilderness Area.
This year’s experience was a lot different than last year’s. Last year, we spent almost an entire day driving along forest roads and hiking down into drainages. We would get into Ryan’s truck, drive down a dirt road, get out, spend 20-45 minutes wandering around drainages, get back into Ryan’s truck, repeat.
This year, we hiked about a mile off of a road, and ended up loving the second fir tree we laid eyes on.
Ryan cut it down, threw it over his shoulder and hiked in back to our truck parked a mile away.
We strapped it down and headed over to his family cabin in Parks to meet up with his parents, and then we went for a late lunch at Mustang River Grill.
After lunch we headed home, and then hauled our tree into our apartment.
Totally fits.
By the time we trimmed it down and got it set up in its stand, it fit (almost) perfectly into the corner of our living room.
We haven’t had a chance to decorate it yet since we both went back to work Monday, but we’re looking forward to getting the lights hung as soon as we both find the time.
In the mean time, our apartment smells like a fir, and it’s so festive and cozy!
