Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!

I got my VERY FIRST Christmas Tree of my adult life (you know, that I bought and cut and put in my own house and will be in charge of decorating etc.). I might add that this is quite possibly the nicest and fullest real tree of my whole life so far.

Anyway, this is the journey from the first sighting of said tree until it's proud placement in the living room:

At 7 am, I picked up my friend, Erica, who wanted to be a part of this momentous occasion, and we drove up to Jemez Springs, NM, to buy the tree-cutting permit. Then we backtracked a little, and took Hwy 269 and FSR 10 up the windy, sandy road to where there are about 5 types of tree. We found several that looked nice, but when I saw this one, I knew it was the ONE. It's an 8ft, very full Pinon pine.

We took turns hacking away at it's base with my quite blunt camping axe that I found a few months ago in the Manzanos. This was the only part I felt a bit bad about - there was undue harm caused to the tree by the inaccuracy of our blows.

Finally, it came down, and Erica heated up some chai and homemade chili - the Texas kind, not the NM kind. Whoever thought of putting ranch seasoning in chili? - but it was great!
Erica found a tiny blue spruce to cut down for herself too. It was "cute". Then we headed back to the truck. The tree was not heavy at all.
On our way back to town, we stopped at the Ponderosa Winery. The owners were very friendly and hospitable, and we tasted several of their wines. I liked their sweet white wines and bought "Chamisa Gold". Finally, the tree came home.
Once again, Lucky seemed quite uncertain about my commitment to him. I think he was quite sure I had just procured a big, green replacement for him. The rest of the afternoon, he was very clingy, and very suspicious of the tree in his territory.

I just didn't have time to decorate it yet. It was all I could do to saw off the end and get it to stand up straight in the tree stand. So, more to come on decorating.