This time of year, you hear a lot of Christmas music playing on the local radio stations, and at times, it can get a little trying on the nerves. But since we’ve been living here in Colorado, there is one I hear periodically, I had never heard before. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded a tune called, “Colorado Christmas” many years ago, and it captured my heart, mainly for the lyrics and the sentiment it captures. The line that probably captures it most appropriately is “The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere, is to wake up Christmas morning in the Colorado snow.” Christmas can be a magical time of year for many of us, no matter where you live. But there’s something about a white Christmas that we all dream of. And fortunately, for those of us who live in the Rocky mountains of Colorado, it’s a strong likelihood we will have that white Christmas. Of the five years, we have lived in our mountain home, there has only been one year we didn’t wake up to snow on the ground (or better yet falling) on Christmas morning. Somehow, looking out on those snowy mountains makes me feel the spirit of gratitude during the Christmas season.
Another advantage to living on two acres of land high up in the mountains is getting a Christmas tree. Our property is full of Douglas-fir trees, many of which are too crowded together. So we are able to do fire mitigation, and choose a wonderful Christmas tree all at the same time, and we don’t even have to tie it to the top of the car to get it home. We literally just drag it up the hill to our house. The biggest challenge is squeezing it through the door, to get it in. Because we have a Great Room with a very high ceiling, a few years, we have cut down bigger trees and put them on display. The first year, my family came to visit, we selected a gorgeous 18-foot Douglas-fir. However, being novices to putting up these big trees, we quickly discovered a problem — we didn’t have a tree stand big enough to support such a tree. So even though, we got our wonderful tree for free, we ended up spending $70 to purchase a tree stand stout enough to support our huge Christmas tree. Decorating it was another challenge, as we had to bring in our tall ladder, and use the nearby stairs to put the lights and ornaments on the upper limbs. We ended up using a pole with a hook on it, to place the tree topper, but in the end the tree was one of the most beautiful I can ever remember.
During a time of year when all of us can get caught up in materialism, it’s nice to feel a lot of appreciation for the beauty of our natural surroundings, and even more gratitude to have the good fortune to be able to experience the magic of a Colorado Christmas on a yearly basis.
