After spending the last four Christmas holidays in North Carolina with our families, Michael and I have decided to give Christmas in Maine a go this year. The sheer possibility of having a white Christmas sends me over the moon with excitement! Since we’ve typically spent so much time away from our house during the holidays, we’ve never seen the point of having a Christmas tree that’s anything more than the small Pottery Barn one we keep on the table in our entryway. All of that changes this year, and of course, the second after we finished our meal on Thanksgiving, I was already pestering Michael about when we’d go and select our very first Christmas tree.

We’d been familiar with The Old Farm Christmas Place in nearby Cape Elizabeth for a few years now, as one of our go-to, Orvis-approved, hiking trails borders the farm. In fact, I’m fairly certain that we started tossing around the idea of spending Christmas in Maine while hiking one weekend last December, when we saw families finding and cutting their Christmas trees at the farm next door. Set on a hilly farm in Cape Elizabeth, there are few things more Christmas-inspiring than row after row of fir trees, and the possibility that one of them is there for your living room. There was never a question as to where we would get our Christmas tree – visiting The Old Farm Christmas Place was a given.

This past Sunday we bundled up and headed over to the farm to cut down our tree. The Old Farm Christmas Place is just as charming as it sounds – the barn, wreaths, rows of trees, tractor rides, and even hot chocolate and a fire to warm patrons. Given that we were new to this whole Christmas tree farm thing, we didn’t know that we could actually cut the tree down ourselves. You have the option of tagging your selected tree and having someone at the farm cut it, or you can bring a saw (or borrow one of theirs) and do the job yourself. The staff at the farm was extremely helpful, and we got to work right away. By the time Michael was sawing away at the base of our tree and I was giving it a little push (and shouting “Timber!” like a champ), we’d completely forgotten that our fingers were numb from the cold – all we could think about was the fact that we were cutting down our Christmas tree ourselves. With a saw. Lumberjack style.

Afterwards we rode down the hill in the tractor with our tree, a seven foot balsam fir that fits perfectly in our living room. It’s lit and decorated, and once we finish it up, we’ll be sure to share it with you. If you don’t already have a tree for yourself, we highly recommend that you pay The Old Farm Christmas Place a visit!