Our Christmas Tree

It’s Christmas tree time again. Last year we bought a living branch which was very full and beautiful and smelt delicious, but it inevitably turned into a very big dead branch. I’m not so keen on that again and I really hate the plastic trees.

When I first moved to New Zealand, Ben and I bought a small (about 40cm high) Douglas Fir Fig. This fig has lived in a pot outside and come inside every Christmas as our tree. Over the years it has become bigger and bigger and increasingly straggly, no doubt objecting to its “caged” life in a pot. At over 2m, it needs to go free-range now, and in the ground. But Douglas Fir Figs can grow to over 100m. They are not a backyard tree.

We decided to bring the fig inside again for one last Christmas and the kids had lots of fun decorating it. If any Aucklanders would like a Douglas Fir Fig for their backyards, then there will be a free one going to a good, loving home come Boxing Day, 2012.