oh! Christmas Tree!

The second weekend in December found us trudging through fields to pick out the *perfect* tree.  We’ve done this almost every year since we started dating… I insist.  Here are updates from 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2011 - not sure what happened to 2010 (I wasn’t blogging before then).

Anyways, we gathered to take the *perfect* family photo out front of the house before our grand tree adventure.  It’s not quite *perfect* (Jason’s being strangled by his scarf, there’s an awkward gap between J and Lilly, Lil isn’t smiling, etc), but good enough considering we were totally winging it (if we had planned better, we probably would have asked our photog friend to take the photos, but we did this on a whim).  Jason thinks it’s a requirement to have pictures of the family in the snow to send out in our Christmas cards, so every year we find ourselves down to the wire to get the *perfect* family photo.  I am thankful that he finds it a shave- and haircut-worthy event, so I support whatever weird rules about snow that he has.

 

Our local Christmas tree guy is less than 3 miles away, so after the family photos, we hopped in the car to get the tree.  We were *those* parents who totally forgot mittens for our baby. Luckily it wasn’t too cold, and the guy we bought the tree from meant business.  He sold us the 3rd tree we looked at, and used the big guns (a tractor) to haul it.  We barely had a chance to snap a photo in front of the tree before he was hauling it.

 

Here’s Jason and our tree.  We cut it a few feet up.  Also, it’s really only the front half of the tree — the back half never really grew and we appreciated the 50% discount on only half of a tree since we just push it into a corner anyways.

 

Of course, I had to take a few photos of Lil in her *second* Christmas tree hunting adventure.  She looks so tiny next to all of the huge trees.

 

Between the tall grasses and the new snow boots that she hadn’t learned to walk in Lil wasn’t able to move out there at all.  She wasn’t very happy about that.  (We’re currently in how-to-walk-in-boots training since she’ll need those skills soon.  I *hope*.)

 

 

She may have also been hungry.  We went out to dinner afterwards and she ate an entire chicken breast.  Here’s where eating out gets expensive – we have to order THREE meals now!?!

 

We decorated the tree the following day, only stopping for a short break to feed the dogs treats.  She’d been asking for the bag of dog treats for a few days, and we finally decided to give it to her.  She did such a great job giving a treat to Barley (BarBar) and Jez, then back to Barley, then Jez.  It required at least 20 min of concentration and was so sweet to watch.

 

Hanging ornaments also requires a bit of concentration.  And maybe some help from mama and dada.

Our tree has been rearranged quite a few times since by our little elf.  We intentionally placed all of the unbreakable ornaments out of her reach, and she isn’t all that interested in taking apart the tree anyways.  Lilly has her own tiny tree to decorate, and a basket of unbreakable/cheap-so-I-don’t-care-if-she-breaks-them ornaments.  She’s amazingly gentle with them and we’ve only had two ornaments destroyed – both by Jezzie, both should be fixable with a little glue.