Coloradans take to national forests to chop their own trees
Clip | 3m 44sVideo has Closed Captions
The Panella family shared a memorable tradition with Rocky Mountain PBS
Rather than buying a plastic tree or opting for farm-grown spruce or fir, many Coloradans take pride in getting their Christmas tree straight from the source.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Coloradans take to national forests to chop their own trees
Clip | 3m 44sVideo has Closed Captions
Rather than buying a plastic tree or opting for farm-grown spruce or fir, many Coloradans take pride in getting their Christmas tree straight from the source.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipWe're good without the shovel or anything like that Okay.
We'll see.
All right lets go What brought us out today is starting a new family tradition.
We came up from Denver to Red Feather Lakes to come chop down our very first Christmas tree.
Hi!
Weve never cut down a tree on our own before And my husband did as a kid.
And we talked about just starting a tradition now that Liams old enough to remember it and trying a new experience for the holidays.
What about one twice that size?
I grew up in California, and we went a couple of times to Half Moon Bay to chop down our own Christmas tree as I was a kid, probably about the same age as Liam.
Go for it.
Ready?
Those types of memories are ones that we always want to try to relive and share with him.
My wife does the same with other aspects of her childhood, which he really enjoys learning to Jump!
*laughter * Walking up the trail is always more challenging than you think when you start to do these adventures.
I'm just grateful for this experience and it was a beautiful day, sun shining to just be out here enjoying Colorado and enjoying nature and just getting in the holiday spirit.
We didn't have a total idea of exactly what we wanted, but we wanted to just have a tree kind of find us.
But we didn't know exactly what kind of trees were going to be out here.
But we just looked around and we waited for one to kind of jump out and we saw one up on the hill and we went right up to it and we thought it was the one for us.
Now youre going to put a whack about in there.
Okay?
Okay.
We let him start it.
I put a little bit into it, Mom put a little bit into it.
The actual process of chopping down the tree, we didn't discuss.
But we all know that Liam wants to take the last chop.
Good job!
All right, pull it out of there.
Here's our Christmas tree.
2023 Panella family Christmas tree.
When I go back to school, I'm going to say I went to the mountains in Red Feather Lake, and.
And I went and chop down the Christmas tree.
It's a pretty big one.
Ta da!
Merry Christmas all.
We did it!
It was great.
I think we learned a lot.
We do have a lot of ornaments and our son loves doing that.
He wants to put the star on top.
So that will be his task.
What's your favorite thing about the holidays or Christmas?
Awe man!
Celebrating my family and and having good times with my family.
Came to a great campsite.
Smile!
Wave!
Say pepperoni pizza!
Say cheeseburger!
Hot dog!
Chocolate!
Wonderful volunteers with hot chocolate.
ready to go for us.
Good.
But the most memorable is definitely Liam taking that first chop and then seeing the tree come down and getting pictures and hopefully building memories that when he is our age and has his own children, he'll be able to talk about.
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