Oh, Christmas Tree

It was high time we finally got our Christmas tree last weekend. This is significantly later than we usually go, as evidenced by he fact that one of the tree farms we passed was already closed for the season and the one where we finally stopped was closing at the end of the day. We were already perilously close to the end of the day.

Since we moved to this house a few years ago, we've been able to get ridiculously tall trees, so now we go on our search with that in mind. It's not quite the big adventure it was when I was a kid. My sister and I used to go out in the farm and try to get ourselves lost while our parents took the dogs on a search for the perfect tree. I hope my kids never pull that. Then again, this was a pretty small farm. Hard to get lost. And I think the kids still took it for high adventure, so everyone had fun! Gram and Grandpa usually join us and get their own tree, but this time Grandpa Ryder came along too, just to snap some photos (which I obviously don't have or you wouldn't just see my crappy shots.)

We drove to the foot of the mountains, tromped around the in the cold and growing twilight and perused the picked over trees for about an hour before picking one to cut. We tied both trees to the top of the mommymobile and headed back down the hill.


Daddy and I always agonize over the perfect tree. Sometimes it looks perfect until we get it home and we realize that about halfway up, the trunk takes a giant bend to the left. Sometimes we give up and just take one and it turns out to be perfect. Every time we cut a tree, we both declare that it's the shortest we've cut since we moved here. Every time we get it in the house, it's just inches from our cathedral ceiling. This year's specimen isn't perfect, but you know? It ain't half bad...and the kids have declared it "beautiful!" And, so it is.