Guest Post - Faith From Twigs And Tea...

Well, the world is still revolving and I'm still here!  Although I must say that Athens had a super intense wind storm last night and things did look a bit spooky for a while...trees swaying, leaves flying down the street like crazed ninja stars (yes, I got hit in the face with one and it hurt pretty damn bad!), things clinking and clanging, and hats being ripped right from folks noggins.  It was neat-o!

Speaking of neat-o, let me introduce you to Faith from twigs & tea...although you probably remember her from this guest post under her blog's previous name Trail Grrrl!  Faith is a free spirit, an avid traveler, a hair dyeing genius, a feminist extraordinaire and a newly graduated college gal who lives, for now, in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest.  Um, what's not to love about her?

So, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Faith!  (That's an Ed McMahon impersonation and not the creepy statement from the Shining...just FYI! Goodness, do any of you know who Ed McMahon is?  I think I might be showing my age here...)

Hey awesome Grits & Moxie readers! I'm Faith from twigs & tea, my blog where I write about my outdoor adventures, crafting experimentations, and life happenings. I’m super excited to be posting here today because this is one of my favorite blogs EVARR. 

So I was initially going to post about gifting handmade and local presents for the holidays (which I still highly encourage you to do), but some crazy shenanigans went down at my house today and I just had to share. That picture you see below my friends is a picture of our newest family member…. The biggest [insert profanity] Christmas tree that you EVER did see. 

My family spent the past seven years building a gargantuan house that has very high ceilings, perfect for housing extremely large Christmas trees. Last year was the first year we had Christmas so we set out to find a gigantic tree. All the tree farms in the area were closed, but no fear! Fortunately for us, most people don’t go around searching for 12ft trees, so we got a private appointment to find the perfect shrub. We took our gorgeous tree home, set it up, started decorating it, then BOOM. Tree stand breaks, ornaments fall, I am halfway in the tree holding it up with my dear life (as well as several unfortunate house guests who were helping us). We had to construct a crazy 2x4 contraption to hold this baby up, no tree stand would do. 

 Last year’s tree comes nowhere close to this year’s tree though.  Luckily, we were smarter this time around and had 2x4 stand materials and power tools ready for some stand-up-tree-ops. You can’t even take a full picture of this tree without going all the way down the hallway it is so huge. Don’t you love how it looks like it’s going through the ceiling? We’re going to go on the roof tomorrow with some tree twigs and a giant star so it looks like it actually IS going through the roof. My dad is behind me measuring it right now, and it is around 28ft around. 28ft!!

Now we have to bust out all our tallest ladders and decorate this baby. We’re probably going to have to borrow all of our neighbor’s ornaments—I mean what would the area of this space be? We need all the ornaments! Maybe we’ll hang our presents on the tree instead of putting them under...that sounds like a good idea. 

P.S. This tree is also going to be the centerpiece for our family friends wedding on Christmas day! Hooray for Washington passing same-sex marriage because they are both men and have been together for 15 years! Yay equality and yay huge trees!! Probably going to be the best Christmas ever. WHOO!

Thanks Faith and Happy Solstice to everyone!