Oh Christmas Tree - part one

For many people, putting up the Christmas tree is one of the first things you do to get ready for the big day.  Maybe you haul it out of the attic or basement and set it up when you get back from shopping on Black Friday.  Or maybe you get the gang in the car and head out to one of those cut-your-own Christmas tree farms for a Griswold-style adventure on the first weekend in December.

With our Thanksgiving travels, a December work trip for Jason, and a desire to minimize the time with a toddler and Christmas tree occupying the same space, we postponed our tree acquisition until the weekend before Christmas.  Saturday was the day!

The prep began Friday night when the kids were in bed.  It was a cascading clean-up effort.  We needed to move the bookshelf from the living room into the playroom, but the playroom was a mess so we had to clean that.  And so after about two hours of cleaning the playroom and shifting around some furniture we were done for the night.

Saturday morning, Jason tackled what has been one of those whenever-we-get-to-it projects.  Baseboard on the wall where the tree goes.  We pulled all the baseboard out of the house when we had the floors done before we moved in and getting them back in has been a slow piece-by-piece process.  Looks good!

After nap time we headed out to the tree lot to pick our tree.  We go to a local church where a Boy Scout troop sells trees as a fundraiser for their troop activities.  This is our third or so year going there.

Sarah and Chris ran around the rows of trees leaned against wooden racks.  The way Chris is running around lately, it's hard to get the 2 kids in the same frame, let alone looking at the camera and smiling at the same time!

It only took really looking at two before we had chosen.  I'm not sure if we just got lucky or if they had an exceptionally good selection of trees.

Chris seemed  to be interested in the netting they used to wrap the trees.

After settling up, the scout tied it to the roof of the van and we headed home.

As we drove home, we could see flurries in the headlights.  It was perfect.

Tonight, the tree is up without much drama.  The dog kinda wants to eat it, but that's ok.

I love the smell of a fresh Christmas tree.  I can't wait for lights and decorations!