Oh....tree....

What we started with.

The tree I was posing next to in my last post wasn't actually the tree we picked for our Christmas tree this year, though it was in the running. Instead we picked the fine tree you see in the upper picture. Normally I pick trees based on their overall shape and density of branches and quality of top. It's a hard process to describe. A good tree just looks good. A bad tree can look bad in a wide variety of ways. 
The six summers I spent pruning Christmas trees as a kid exposed me to tens of thousands of trees. I saw every way that I tree could go wrong in growing. I was also tasked with attempting to fix some of those faults and I know that a lot of the things I see wrong with trees in the field aren't so much the fault of the tree as the lack of skill of the pruner. Poor trees never had a chance.

Sturdy branches.

With the tree farm so close, and the family that runs it so nice, we were destined to find a tree that we found acceptable. Which we sort of did. The main selling point for our tree this year was sturdy branches. The poor thing had been pruned way too hard on it's last go. Instead of having soft fine branches full of needles, it was festooned with stumps. It's more a collection of small pine logs than a tree in many ways. It was also completely lacking a top in the conventional sense. Yes, it had a highest point, but instead of that point coming to an actual point, it was shaped more like a basket, or more optimistically, a mesa. I wasn't initially sure what we'd do about it but I figured we'd sort it out.

Not too shabby.

We brought the tree home and bolted on the stand. A quick shove through the door and we were in business. Lights and tinsel and ornament after ornament. This is where the hefty stumpy branches proved their worth. Adults tend to put ornaments all over a tree. Little kids tend to pick a spot and cram as many ornaments as they can on one branch. In the past we've had trouble with formerly tall proud branches reduced to hanging on the floor under the weight of the ornaments. Not this year. This year the branches didn't budge. 
As the decorating continued I was still scratching my head about the top. I could have just set a beach ball up there and called it good, it wouldn't have rolled away. Then I noticed that in the back of the tree a branch was hanging down to the floor. There weren't any ornaments on it because it was in back, and all it was being used for was a chew toy by our toothless cat. A quick snip and a zip tie and we had a top. My wife complimented me on my crafty solution for an artificial top. My dear, it's not an artificial top, it's a prosthetic limb.