The holiday season might be over, but as I look back, I laugh, even though at the time I didn’t think it was so funny.

After 30 years of not having a real Christmas tree, my husband suddenly decided we should have one. It would smell wonderful in our home and bring a sense of joy. Besides, our friends and family would also enjoy its beauty.

Not only would we have a real tree, but we’d need to get into a Paul Bunyan frame of mind since we would be cutting it down ourselves. We felt adventuresome, so we thought we’d give it a try. Sounds good if you’re in your 30s, but somehow in your 60s it’s not.

Since we had rarely prepared ourselves for any venture in our lives, why start now? We headed out to a friend’s Christmas tree farm on the coldest day possible wearing the lightest jackets and clothing possible.

Somehow when you stand amongst numerous evergreens in a huge field under a vast sky, they look quite small. As my husband stood by various trees, the only comments I kept making were, “No, that looks too little. No, that looks too narrow.”

We finally decided on a tree that seemed perfect for our cathedral ceilings. How did we know what seemed so right would be so wrong? Think “Christmas Vacation” with Chevy Chase.

My spouse proceeded to kneel down on the freezing ground with his light-weight pants and started to saw and saw and saw. It didn’t help matters much when I kept saying, “Look up and smile so I can take your picture.” The Christmas spirit wasn’t in his face, that’s for sure.

After what seemed forever, the tree finally budged. My 63-year-old lumberjack’s arm ached for days.

We certainly underestimated the size of our SUV’s trunk, as well as the size of our living room. We knew we needed a big tree, but not this big.

By the time we squeezed the tree into our car—with the majority of it sticking out — I wanted to call an escort vehicle with those flashing lights to guide us home. Thank goodness we lived nearby.

Have you ever tried to squeeze yourself into a tight pair of jeans? Well, think of that when we tried to maneuver this evergreen through our front door. After taking the door off and scraping paint, it found its way in.

Of course, it was too tall and too wide. We actually had to bring a chain saw into our living room and saw off what I believed could have been enough to be someone else’s Christmas tree.

Putting it into the stand was another chore. How could a tree that looked so straight in the forest look so crooked at home? After propping an old VCR under one leg of the stand, it looked just about right.

What were we thinking? For such a huge tree, did I have enough lights, enough ornaments, enough stamina to decorate, let alone the time to vacuum every nook and cranny now filled with sawdust?

I guess I did because when I stood back and looked upward at its majestic height with twinkling lights and fragrant smelling branches, all I could say was, “I hope we are brave enough to try this again next year!”