New Christmas Tradition

Thanks to my neighbor, whom I will refer to as "FX" in this post, we have created a new Christmas tradition...that is apparently French. It is the annual throwing of the christmas tree out of our 3rd story window. I do realize that it is February, but this year's Christmas tree has been conveniently stored on our balcony since then. Today I finally found the motivation to take out the tree, thanks to continuous encouragement from Whitney. Thanks to FX we have learned that it is much more efficient to throw your Christmas tree out of the window than to walk it down the steps and then clean up all the pine needles afterwards.

Luckily our friend Heidi was here after she and Whitney ran 15 miles (who's crazier this day?) and she was able to document the action.

According to FX: it's necessary to clear the sidewalk visually from the ground before launching "le sapin" out the window. Also, he recommended doing this late at night when the streets were empty, but since the mood struck this morning, a morning launch it was . So ...Whit took the task of crowd control and went downstairs to give the all clear before we sent the tree sailing. In addition to pedestrians other obstacles included the cars of the owners of our building and various small dogs, all of which we were able to avoid....I think?


Once I got the green light from Whit we let the tree go and hoped for the best. Although we thought a Christmas tree would fall straight down, we were mistaken. This tree seemed to develop some aerodynamic tendencies and began gliding towards the street...against traffic of course.


Luckily, the tree glided to a halt in the intersection when no cars were coming. Since Whit was already dressed in her running gear she was able to sprint out into the street and remove the Christmas tree before any cars came.


Just another Saturday in France. Berlin pics coming soon.