If the glove don't fit, you MUST acquit. I repeat: if the glove don't fit, you MUST acquit.

We cut our own pinyon pine this year with a $15 USFS tag. I think they were only $5 in Willamette NF last year.

Everyone in this area shuns the low-elevation pinyon in favor of the high-elevation, hence harder to get, blue spruce. But our little pinyon is near perfect and was so easy to get. The blue spruce requires much more effort and will literally draw blood if you're not wearing gloves.

I agree with you in that obsessing over the perfect tree really takes the fun out of getting a tree for me.

Wow. That's pretty good for a 20-year-old college student. I think I was still learning to tie the bunny knot on my shoes at that age.

I don't know. Responding with a 'yep' or an 'oh yeah' to my 'thank you' doesn't bother me. I see the whole 'thank you-you're welcome' exchange as a formality that can be expedited. After all, if someone does something courteous for someone else, they did it because they wanted to or felt it right, not because they wanted to be thanked.