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The preparations begun. All of these boxes are loaded with decorations. |
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Getting my gloves ready. It was COLD outside! |
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Jaime is layerd up too! |
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Gwen saying goodbye as we venture out into the cold Northeastern Winter. |
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Jaime's preparations are now complete. |
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And we found Winston! He is a hansome Concolor fir, we got from our favorite "top secret" Christmas tree dealership. |
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He was a big tree, we didn't take all of it. |
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Notice how Jaime is looking up. That's because you ALWAYS have to look up to see all of Winston. |
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And we felled the mighty beast. He was HEAVY! |
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Winston loaded into the truck. |
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Helping the proprietor of the tree farm bale Winston up. |
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Winston back at the Hudge. Notice I had to build a pallet on top of the Saturn so Winston's weight wouldn't break the sunroof. I asked the guy at the place if people ever put the trees right on the sunroofs, and he said "yeah, but never anyone with a tree as big as yours!" |
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W for "Winston!!!" |
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Got him in the house. |
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We had to trim the trunk down a little bit, slight error that we didn't bring the tape measure out into the field with us. No big deal! |
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Winston was literally 5 feet taller than Jaime. He was huge. The tallest tree we've had here, the branches were brushing the ceiling. |
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Way up there at the top! |
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Winston sat wonderfully in the stand this year and we barely had to adjust him at all. The stand held his massive weight without a problem! Good thing I made this bad boy. The trunk was about 8" in diameter. The stand can hold a 10" trunk. |
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Jasmine got in on the action. |
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Jaime began cutting the baling off. |
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Watch out! |
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Working her way up. Notice how she's ready to jump out of the way in case of explosive force! |
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And that's as high as she could reach! |
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What can we do about that? |
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Let's get the step stool! |
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Working near the top! |
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Still couldn't get it. I had to get the stepladder out! |
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I had to get on the 4th step to reach the top! |
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Winston was a nicely formed tree, but there was a pretty big hole right in the front side. We can fix that. This branch is going to be a "toupe" of sorts. |
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The idea is to drill a hole in the trunk, and stuff a branch in there to fill in the gap. |
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Drilling. |
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Before... |
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After, see how much bushier it is? |
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Okay, now for the best part, let's light this sucker! |
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Testing, 1.2.3. |
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We decided last year to try doing all white lights this year to mix it up, it was a wise decision as Winston is unlike any tree we've ever done! |
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Action shots... |
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I thought I'd be a little stingier with the lights. Since it was our first year with whites, I bought 2000 last year at 1/2 off. I thought it would be enough. I was mistaken. I had to go buy 1200 more to finish the job (only needed 1000 more). |
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Placing the star. |
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It was quite a stretch. |
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There it is! |
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And Voila! 3011 lights (3000 lights (15 sets of 200) and 11 in the star!) |
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Jaime placing the first ornament. |
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And somehow, we forgot to take photos of the ornament hanging, but here is Winston done! |
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He's a pretty bright tree. Actually, our brightest! Since the white bulbs are brighter and all that. |
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Ahhhh, nice. |
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The obligatory motion blur shots! |
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Neeerrrroooowwwww! |
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We were a happy couple! |
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Winston was a little jealous of us kissing in his prescence, but he'll get over it. |
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It's hard to get a good shot of the whole tree, since his size defies optics. |
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Looking up at Winston's awesomeness! |
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Jasmine was there too... |
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And now, turkey dinner! |
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The view from the living room. |
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Fired up some candles for the evening, since we don't have fires with a tree in the room.
That's all of our 2007 Awesomeness that is Winston! |