I finally figured it out. I think.
We have long shopped at cut-your-own-tree places, for the dual reason of family adventure and tradition when the boys were young, and because we put ours up very late (I would go later still), and the cut trees in the lots are picked over at that point.
Most of the trees at cut-your-own are quite dense, with little room to put ornaments which depend from branches rather than drape the exterior. They are for those people who have ribbon, garland, lights, and some theme of ornaments, all on the outside. Owls are big this year, I gather. They are trees for beauty, and more purely decorative.
Our ornaments do not have a theme, unless "family history" counts. Odd, even unattractive ornaments have been acquired over the years, made as children's crafts or given by friends and relatives. A few are carried over from our own childhood. More ornaments have stories than I am interested in at this point. My wife cares more, and remembers.
I couldn't understand why so many people who just have to be similar to us, because here they are on the same tree farm mailing list, getting up early on the first available day to traipse all over fields in Weare to compare trees, could all be the sort of persons who bought those other trees with hardly any room for ornaments. Not until this year, just an hour ago, did I piece together that this is where one shops for boutique trees if one is going to do that Martha Stewart sort of tree. The cut trees on the lots all have space for ornaments. Those are family trees, like ours. We are the unusual ones at the boutique tree place.
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WRT the stories of ornaments: our collection is similar and larger than we can put on our traditional tree. It turns out quite a few students from overseas are interested in American traditions, and some have helped assemble and decorate our tree the past few years, with running commentary from my wife on the history of the ornaments.
I settled on Frasier firs a while back, because I insist on lots of rooms between the branches to dangle ornaments. I also like the look of a bunch of plain shiny balls in the interior, near the trunk, as a backdrop to the more craft-y styles of dangling ornaments closer to the outside.
Cut-your-own is not much of an option this far south. What I like to do is buy a pre-cut Frasier right after Thanksgiving and leave it in a pail of water, still wrapped up, for a few weeks. I found a real beauty this year, nearly 12 feet tall. We'll drag it upstairs and install it in the next week or two, hoping that will mean it doesn't dry out and lose too many needles before Christmas day.
I've been making and collecting ornaments for this tree for over 30 years. It is, if I may say so myself, the most gorgeous tree in the whole world.
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