The Tradition of the Christmas Tree

Here is our interesting tree this year.  When Ryan and I were first married we adopted one of his family's Christmas traditions of getting a Charlie Brown or "ugly" tree every other year.  (See the story below the picture.)  However the last few years we have had so much fun finding such different trees that now it seems that every year is the "ugly" year and we just end up finding an interesting tree.  You can't really tell by the picture, but this tree has a huge bend in the middle.  Almost like how bamboo curls around- this tree was very similar to that.  It's also about 12 feet high!

When Ryan was a young boy, living in Southern California, his family would go to the tree lot each year to pick out the perfect Christmas tree.  One particular Christmas (when Ryan was about 10 years old) they were at a tree lot and his dad called everyone over to look at this tree he'd found.  It was the ultimate Charlie Brown tree.  It was thin and scraggly and UGLY.  Everyone laughed at it and turned away to continue their search for that "perfect" tree.  Everyone that is except for their dad.  

When the rest of the family noticed that dad was not at their side-- they turned in time to see him paying the owner of the tree lot for that ugly tree.  "Nooooo!"  Shouted Ryan's mom as she ran over to stop the transaction.  Too late.  The tree was bought and paid for, however the tree lot owner didn't even want money for the tree.  He wanted GIVE it away just to get it off the lot (that's how bad it was.)  But no, dad insisted on paying full price for that little, ugly tree.  As the family walked off the lot with their first ever Charlie Brown Christmas tree a new tradition was born --and the tree lot owner shook dad's hand all the way to the car!