Monday, December 16, 2013

O Tannenbaum...

Real tree or fake tree?

We've always gotten a real tree before.  This year was our first fake tree.  They are cheaper than real trees.  Plus we wanted a tree a bit sooner than some, since Russians want a tree from 31 December to 8 January, so they aren't likely to put up a real tree in mid December.

Here are some attempts to find a tree.  This first batch were the selection at the big box store "AshanCiti" (mini Auchan):




That trip cost an hour each way and lots of hassle, but these batch were ultimately rejected (too short, too scrawny, etc).

Then on a special-purpose trip to the "Mega" shopping mall we looked at a wide range of stores.  First, the selection in the mega-Ashan store was wide, but still not great looking (LQC for Moscow prices).  Then a children's store had the following variant:


There was a display in the food court by a specialty company, and there were some really nice trees, again, for really "nice" prices.  But after seeing good fake trees, it's hard to go back…

Finally we checked out a store called Obi, which turns out to be a very useful big box store like Home Depot, and like Home Depot, had an entire garden center, where there were a wide range of cut real trees, trees in pots, and fake trees and all the trimmings.

So we spent more than we meant to, probably more than we should have (but less than elsewhere);


We left the store with a fake tree in a box.  Now, how to get it home, on public transportation, with 3 kids, a stroller and some groceries:





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