Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
where do you get your real christmas tree?
price?
quality?
do you cut it down yourself?
I've never had a real tree before, is it a PITA?
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
Re: where do you get your real christmas tree?
We always went to the tree farm. They are all over, we went to one in Lakeville.
It was great quality, we paid between $25-$35. We cut it down, then they would shake and bind it for us.
It's a pain to get out of the house as you drop needles EVERYWHERE!
The big sister, and Momma 30 weeks along with baby sister
Food Blog, Family and Baby Blog
We get our real tree from a little old guy by my parents' house so you walk out in his backyard, point to one, and he cuts it down for you. He charges $20, but it's a ways from here, so probably not helpful to you.
For cleaning up, we always get one of those big tree bags (or big contruction bags if it's a small tree) and you poke a hole in the bottom and put the trunk through it. Then scrunch it down and put the tree skirt over it. At the end of the season, you undecorate the tree and just slid the bag up and around the tree, trapping all the needles inside of it. It keeps things nice and clean.
Here's a list of Minnesota tree farms: http://www.mncta.com/
We usually go to Log Cabin Pines in Elko, but my work schedule is crazy on weekends this year, so we needed to go last Friday morning if we were going to get a tree before Dec. 18, and our regular place wasn't opening until noon. We went to a different tree farm and selected one of their pre-cut trees because that was all we had time for. I'm not very happy with it, it's super dry already, even though we made a fresh cut as soon as we got home and put it in a stand with water right away. It's hardly taken any water. I don't think it was as "fresh cut" as they said.
Mr. Sammy Dog
We go to Zywiecs Greenhouse in Cottage Grove. The trees are from a local tree farm. We get a pretty big tree (7-8') because we have vaulted ceilings. It usually runs us about $50-70 for a Fraser Fir. We have purchased our tree there for the last 8 years and they always last until Christmas.
http://www.zywiecs.com/sales.php
my read shelf:
We have gone and cut down our tree before, but the past couple years we have gone to Lowes. We pay $16 for a 6-7 foot tree and they look great. My brother even commented that he thought ours was fake because it looked 'perfect'. Once we have kids that are a little older I want to go back to cutting down a tree.
As for maintenance I think they are really easy. Yes, they do drop needles, especially when you take down the tree. Other than that we just make sure to water every day. That's it.
A lot depends on the size and type of tree you get, some are more expensive than others... i.e. white pine vs. Fraser/Balsom...
The quality of tree really depends on where you go and who you get it from. The trees I got from the "big box stores" really were hit and miss - in one case (i.e. the last one from there) we had to cut off about 3' because there was an entire section missing inside the tree...
I now go cut my own at a tree from in WI - Pleasant Valley Tree Farm... The place is AWESOME! Their pricing is reasonable, quality is fantastic, they've got a great gift shop and homemade wreaths from their own trees that are decorated beautifully. They're a hike but it's well worth it.
The thing about a real tree is that you have to cut it and get it into water immediately (literally minutes) in order for it to have the longest life inside possible as well as keeping it watered (sometimes this means checking/refilling a couple times a day, but most of the time it's just once a day)... If you plan ahead, it's pretty easy. Get a piece of vinyl from JoAnn's or Walmart to put under it to help collect needles and keep from any water spillage damaging the floors. Don't put it anywhere near a heat vent or fireplace that you use. Definitely get a tree bag for when it's time to take it out of the house. As for the stand, I have a painted cast iron one that is awesome, won't bend and holds the tree in place year after year.
I was in a hurry and decided we needed a tree RIGHTAWAY this week. haha So we just went to Home Depot (we needed other stuff from there.) we got a 8 ft balsam fir for $35? $25? I don't even remember now. They trimmed branches off the bottom, took a fresh slice off of the truck, and wrapped it up for us. It looks great! We got a tree stand at the same time (it's our first real tree!) So far, so good. We add almost a gallon of water each day.
In response to PP- we saw Costco had trees yesterday. But from what we could tell, you didn't really get to pick one out. They were unloading them directly from the truck to people's cars (still wrapped up, so you couldn't really see the trees.) They were still $30 I think, so not really a great deal anyway.
Eat.Drink.BeMarried. Blog.