the berry bush

Our family was never the type to get the perfectly-shaped Christmas tree. We always went and cut our own, and imperfect trees always were more 'real' to us. While I've succumbed to buying mine at Home Depot nowadays (and of course they're always trimmed to nice shapes - though thankfully never too perfect), Mom and Dad still go and get one from the ground. This years tree is a perfect example of our fondness for odd shaped trees...kind of more of a bush maybe (though that's not a good word in our family). It's so wide that it wouldn't even fit in the normal location for the tree. "It didn't look so big out in the woods" Mom says.