Adventures in Christmas Treeing

For several years growing up, my family went and cut our Christmas Tree down at the tree farm. I have great memories of running through the trees trying to find that "perfect tree". Ever since we had Levi, I've wanted to do that with my family. So, this was the first year that we thought Levi was old enough to understand and be able to participate in what we were doing. I was so excited.

After a brief melt down with Levi regarding tying the Christmas Tree to the top of the car (he thought we wouldn't be able to get it off), we were ready to go. We got the measuring stick and the saw and were off. It didn't take us long to determine that we weren't looking for a "perfect" tree here because half of them were dead! I mean, seriously, they were brown. We trudged on though thinking we could find one that was semi-decent. Nope, it didn't happen. We actually were laughing about it because it was so comical. I'm assuming it was because of the lack of rain we've had around here the past couple of years. Here are the kids next to a Charlie Brown type Christmas Tree. I think Levi is saying "Booooo".

I really wanted to help out this small business, but instead we went to Lowe's where we got the most beautiful tree ever!

When we got the tree home, Levi got his hammer so that he could help Garet put the tree up. However, he needed a pillow because the ground was too hard for him. Sigh.

Here's Kara "helping" put up the tree:

Garet had to leave for two weeks right after we got the tree up, so the kids and I had to decorate by ourselves. I was pretty bummed, but the kids made it fun. We watched "Elf" to liven up the mood:

Can you tell which area of the tree Levi decorated? The area with all the ornaments that "aren't breakable" (in Levi's words).:The finished product. Part of the reason I was a little sad decorating without Garet is because our tree is very sentimental. We collect ornaments from everywhere that we go and half the fun of decorating the tree is reminiscing about past trips and memories that we have had from our first trip to our ones before kids to our ones with kids to the good trips to the bad trips - it makes my heart full. We even have a naked man on our tree (a statue of David from Florence, Italy :). This year we got to add ornaments from the Alamo, Blue Ridge Parkway and Pearl Harbor. Maybe next year we'll be able to cut our tree down...