Oh Christmas Tree

Growing up I always had a fake Christmas tree until I meet David. This will be our eighth year going and cutting down a Christmas tree and I wouldn't change this tradition ever and hope Benjamin does it with his family also (if they still have tree farms then)!

On Saturday we get all bundled up to go to our usual tree farm out in Washington, MO called Heritage Valley Tree Farm; it takes about an hour to get there. We had my work Holiday Party the night before so we were struggling a little bit, but this is a tradition and I was determined to get a tree. David and I drove separate cars because last year it was such an ordeal getting the tree strapped to the roof of the car that we decided that it was going to be a good idea to just throw it in Goldie. We get there, bundle up Benjamin even more (bad mom here and forgot his gloves) and headed out. We get a saw and a sled and venture over to our tree lot and our jaws dropped...where were all the trees??

Look at those twigs!



There were only about 40 to pick from and all were under 5 feet tall. David and I were speechless, which is a big statement! It was so cold and Benjamin was crying so I decided to go inside and warm up with Benjamin while David kept looking. David came back in about 20 minutes later pissed that he couldn't find one good tree. We looked around for a couple other places online and saw that Eckert's has a cut-your-own-tree farm so we decided to check it out, NOT so fast David says because we needed to get home to watch the Mizzou game, it's a big deal. We head home treeless.

On Sunday, after a fun trivia night and much needed rest, we decide to attempt the tree cutting AGAIN. We get all bundled up AGAIN(remembered Benjamin's gloves this time and got him some snow boots) and headed out in two separate cars AGAIN.

We got to take a tractor ride to the tree lot which was awesome. It was "smack you in the face" cold outside, but Benjamin did great for the first ten minutes and then started getting real fussy real fast. He wanted to run down this hill but I was afraid I was going to fall chasing him, then he wanted to play in the fire they had and of course everyone knows that is not happening. So here are a couple fun pics before Benjamin had a melt down.

 

SO, David finally found a tree and cut it down and we got out of there so we could warm up (thankfully we had two cars so I didn't have to watch David try to strap it to the roof for thirty minutes). I have picked out all the trees except for one so I was little nervous to see what David had picked out and much to my surprise it was perfect.

 

 

Sorry this is so long, but I dealt with this ALL weekend so...keep reading please! After the tree is up and straight we are ready to put on the lights but there weren't any (of course) and we decided that we would do color bulbs, some C7 action! We got to Home Depot and there were none, well let me rephrase that, there were some but David is so picky when it comes to his Christmas lights that they didn't have what he wanted so we headed over to Lowe's...none there also. Can you guess what we did next, yes we went back to Home Depot and got white lights. Oh brother, can we just get this tree complete?

 

We get home, David puts the lights on and I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Benjamin helped put the ornaments up. He also helped take them down...it is going to be a long holiday season!  

Benjamin helping!

 

Our tree is finally complete and it is perfect. It might have taken all weekend to get it there, but at least we have a tree and our tradition is still going strong! Note, if you come over you better comment on how kick ass our tree is ;)