Birch Ridge Inn 2013 Christmas Tree taking center stage in the Great Room.

Birch Ridge Inn 2013 Christmas Tree taking center stage in the Great Room.

Some people call today Cyber Monday. At the Birch Ridge Inn we call it Christmas Tree Monday. Each year, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, we put the inns Christmas tree into the Great Room. It stands bare overnight waiting for Mary to start the process of decorating it on Tuesday.

This year, we had a little twist. Due to the logistics of the tree farmer we worked with this year, we had to go and harvest the tree on a Saturday. For the last week, the tree has been waiting patiently, under a strong tarp, in the yard to finish its journey into the Inn.

As we re-formulated this years festivities, we began the day with a group ski at Killington. At 9:00 AM we all met at the K1 base lodge for several hours of skiing, prior to our traditional Chinese lunch at Sushi Yoshi. Skiing today was really nice; the result of the resort continuing to make snow over the Thanksgiving holidays combined with several inches of new snow provided by Mother Nature overnight. The run of the day was probably Chute under the Snowdon Quad. When we skied on it, the low clouds had given way to a mottled blue sky. When combined with zero other skier or rider traffic, and soft snow on an edge receptive base, it was just the perfect trail to let the skis get some early season open trail run time.

After lunch, we reassembled the group back at the inn to raise the Christmas Tree. After some minor adjustments with a chain saw, we hauled the tree into the inn and raised it in a little over an hour. Not bad for a 13 1/2 foot free standing tree.

Over the week Mary will be decorating the tree, and I will be processing some of the hours of video shot to document the festivities. Watch this space all week for postings on the progress of the 2013 Birch Ridge Inn Christmas Tree.

Let it snow!