#ChristmasTree December 24

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In December 2025, many of us will take part in the 30-Day Rewind Coach4aday Challenge. Each day, we’ll rewind, review, reflect or—in my case—re-blog one of my nearly 4,000 posts that highlight experiences shaping us into better versions of ourselves. If you don’t have a blog, your reflections can come from a journal or even a meaningful memory tied to something learned, a goal reached, or a personal effort to improve. These daily habits of looking back will serve as a powerful springboard for taking on a new and ambitious challenge in 2026. Today my rewind is on purchasing a CHRISTMAS TREE.

In 2023, we brought an end to our tradition of buying a live Christmas tree. For the first 42 years of our marriage, it was something we did every year right after Thanksgiving. During the final twenty-five years of that tradition, we owed a great debt of gratitude to Keith Taylor and Greenstate Landscaping. Today I am rewinding a blog post from November 25, 2018 on that experience.

Rewind-30 Day Challenge Guidelines

As with previous challenges, participants are encouraged to adapt the guidelines to fit their own circumstances. If you can, commit to sharing a rewind, review, or reflection during the month of December

1. Rewind, review, or reflect on a past effort to improve, a lesson you learned, or a goal you accomplished.
2. Share with a challenge partner if you have one.
3. Join the conversation by posting on social media with the hashtag #Coach4adayChallenge

December 24-Christmas Tree

We live in a home built in 1910 with 11 foot ceilings.  Black and white photo of our home circa 1911

Photo of the house today

A big house means a big tree. That meant my wife always went shopping for a big Fraser Fir grown in North Carolina. Big means eleven feet or taller.

A big Christmas tree means a big project to get it in the house and set up. Also you have to decorate a large tree which is no small feat.

The photos below show one of the North Carolina–grown Fraser fir Christmas trees from 2018. The 11-foot tree typically required two strong young men—usually Keith or his son Travis—to get it properly set in place. To secure it in the corner of the front room of our home, it had to be mounted on a 4′ by 4′ piece of ¾″ plywood. Each corner of the plywood was fitted with an eye bolt and chain to prevent the tree from toppling over. You can see the eye bolts and chains clearly in the photo below.

Today, our tree is no longer a live one, but it still closely resembles an 11-foot Fraser fir grown in North Carolina.