...had the ugliest Christmas tree ever.

This is not it. That's actually last year's tree, which was...charmingly unique, but cannot begin to approach the ugliness that is this year's tree. You may be thinking, "but Chloe, that's a seriously hideous tree!" and you may be right; I wouldn't even know anymore. You see, we judge trees differently here. Anytime my family has lived in Colorado, we've purchased a permit and gone up to the National Forest to cut down a wild tree. These look nothing like those symmetrical and full trees you'll find at lots, but I always loved them anyway. For several years we had a vaulted ceiling and were able to get 20+ foot trees, and the sheer impressiveness of the tree made up for whatever cosmetic deficiencies it might have. Then we moved up to the mountains and huge trees were no longer an option.

One benefit to having land is that you don't have to buy a Christmas tree or even get a permit; you just go in your backyard and chop one down. As you see, we have many trees. Unfortunately, these were too tall to be the tree. Fortunately, there were others to choose from.

This is especially good news for someone who once got lost in the woods for 8 hours because his or her stupid brother didn't listen to this individual and took them the opposite direction of the car when they were cutting down a tree in the National Forest--but that's a story for another time. It's easy these days: grab saw, walk outside, hack down a tree, and decorate. True, they won't be perfect, but they have character. Getting a tree is simple and fun. Or it should be.

We got our tree November 28th, which is practically heresy in our home. Christmas celebrations cannot commence until December, didn't you know? I think what follows was punishment for our early festivities. Walking outside that day was a bit uncomfortable. There were still several inches of snow from a storm a few days back, and we were scheduled to get more that night (hence the rush to get our tree). This meant that it was cloudy, cold, and a simply dreadful wind was blowing. Undeterred, my parents and I suited up in down coats and snowboots heavy enough to give you a workout every time you try to take a step. It didn't help much. After a few minutes I couldn't feel my face, and thus all my helpful suggestions sounded something like "Uh thung uh shud gut thussun dun."

This, combined with the rapidly approaching dark, put us in somewhat of a frenzy to find a tree. Our initial insistence on the perfect friendly fir soon gave way to frequent sightings of the "perfect" tree. We became so blind that indeed, we thought the tree we soon selected was beautiful. Sure, we'd have to cut off the bottom half to make it fit in our house, but it was dying anyway. And yes, there might be a wee little spot that wasn't as full as we might like, but we'd just put that side in the corner and no one would know. So we began cutting it down, which actually was much harder than it ought to have been. See, our saw looked like this:

And yes, it was as dull as it looks. Extra bonus, three of the four screws somehow fell out, and so as we sawed the handle would regularly fly off in a desperate bid for freedom, only to be awkwardly restrained by that one little screw that was still working to free itself. Still, with a great deal of sawing and a lot of pushing, the tree finally fell, and my father carried it down the Hill of Death with Hoover leaping after him, biting at the tree in an effort to protect my father from the terrible green beast.

At last we got back to the house and tried to determine the best place to cut the tree. My father quickly ditched us, having had enough tree-related fun for one decade. My mother and I, however, are determined to get this thing up and decorated tonight. So we measure the height of the room we'll be putting it in, and then we promptly cut the tree without thinking it through and adjusting for the sparse top we might have wanted to cut off and such. Then it strikes us: this tree is hideous.

Sure, we knew it wouldn't be perfectly beautiful. We've long forsaken the ideal tree. Who cares about symmetry? What's this fullness you talk about? What do you mean there shouldn't be squirrel poop in your tree? Who cares if our tree isn't perfect? It's got character! From that moment on, those three words became our mantra as we desperately tried to convince ourselves that we weren't bringing an abomination into the house.

For example: upon examining the bare spot that was approximately the bottom two feet of the tree, my mother and I laughed weakly and reassured ourselves, "It's not perfect, but it's got character!" As we tried to find the best angle to face outward and realized that no matter how we turned it, the tree still looked worse than Charlie Brown's before the magical transformation that never made sense to me as a child, we'd grimace and mutter, "It has character."

After a great deal of finagling and splinters (one of which I was too wussy to remove and now seems to be permanently embedded in my palm which I'm sickly pleased about) we got the tree in the stand, where it stood leaning sadly to the left. That, of course, just gave it more character. Then we stared at the tree, long and hard. In addition to the completely bald bottom two feet, there was a bald spot near the top, and even the fuller parts were pathetic. There was only one thing to do: graft.

Armed with a drill, branches we stole from the abandoned half of the tree, and a stupidly dull kitchen knife, we set to work. Of course, we couldn't find our drill bits, so we were left with the smallest one we own. This meant making a small honeycomb pattern where you wanted the branch to go and then using the knife to carve out the thin walls--in theory. In reality, it meant a great deal of mutilating our already ugly tree as we failed in attempts at accuracy and drilled completely through the tree on more than one occasion.

Once we had some semblance of holes, we whittled down the end of branches and stuck them in, only to watch them promptly flop over, making our tree appear quite as depressed as we felt. I was all for giving up and having a Christmas coat hanger, but my mother was on a quest. She got the hot glue and some twine and forced me to hold branches in awkward positions as she alternately slung them on and glued them in while the tree attacked my face. We did two branches that day before admitting defeat. It looked like this:

Again, keep in mind--that ugly tree has already been the recipient of two fake branches. I know, it's gorgeous.

So we left the tree alone for a week. Maybe two. Every so often we'd glance sadly into the room where it sat and once more mutter, "It's got character." Then a few days ago, my mother took charge and grafted more branches. Suddenly, it wasn't quite the ugliest tree ever--just the runner up. Then she put on lights. And then she forced me to decorate the stupid thing in that cold, cold room. (In my family there are two long-standing myths: one, that I love decorating the Christmas tree; two, that I love wrapping everybody's presents. These things are not all that true.)

And that left us with this (please excuse the bad picture--it was so cold in there):

Perhaps not quite the ugliest tree in the world anymore? I wouldn't know.

I call him Brutus.