The annual event of the ‘Buying of the Christmas Tree’ arrived. So we went out and bought a Christmas tree. It’s about 2 meters high, and green. Very nice. I like having a tree in the house’ great smell. For hubbie however, December is a stressful time, as he is allergic to, yes you’ve guessed it; evergreen trees (‘dennegroen’ in Dutch). Now where would you pick up a peculiar allergy like that? I believe however that this is an acceptable price to pay for living with a Dutch, so the tree stays.
We used to buy a living one back home, and when I lived in Canada, we’d go out into a tree farm, and you could cut your own. When I first got to Lebanon, they didn’t even sell real Christmas trees, and I had to do with a plastic one. Lebanon, with a cedar tree as its national symbol and on the flag, does not have much evergreen, and Christmas trees have to be imported. This is the 11th year we have a ‘real’ one.
The past years we used to buy spruce (Norway spruce) for the simple reason that this was the only type for sale in Beirut, but these things were probably cut down already somewhere in October, and by the time they went on display in December, they were as dry as could be, so by December 20th all you’d have was this wooden skeleton with some balls on it. Now they sell a type of firs (Fraser fir), whose needles stick better, and halfway January you still have a green tree. Drawback is that the firs start at $67 for a tree. All this must be vastly interesting for you.
Anyway, we bought the tree at Exotica (strange name for a flower store. Wait till you hear the name of a local nut store; Enotica. Reminds me of the name of a whore house), transported it to the house, and decorated it in no less than an hour. And here’s the result.
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