O Christmas Tree

I love the beginning of the Christmas season and every year I am anxious to get it started as soon as possible. I'm very glad that this year we have an extra week between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Do you remember last year we only had four weeks between them and it seemed so rushed?) I like an extra long holiday season. And, I get the ball rolling the day after Thanksgiving. Our Black Friday traditions consist of Christmas Tree shopping, rather than Christmas gift shopping.

Jeff, Joost, Grace and I bundled up on Friday morning and drove to a Christmas tree farm to find the right tree. We walked up and down every hill and path to see all the trees. We tagged a few possibilities, but finally decided on a lovely blue spruce. (note to anyone considering a blue spruce: they have very sturdy branches, great for hanging ornaments, but the needles are very sharp. I had to wear rubber gloves to get the lights on it.)

Then, Jeff took over and cut the tree down. We hulled it back to the driveway and loaded it in the van for it's ride home.



Joost, apparently, ran up and down the hills at the tree farm a few too many times.

We set up the tree and strung lights that day and did a lot of other decorating around the house. This is the first year we've put up lights on the outside of the house, so I'm very excited about that. We joke that it looks like a "winter wonderland."
Yesterday, we decorated the tree and the kids had a lot of fun doing that. It's great to pull out the ornaments each year and to talk about the memories attached to each one.
Gracie has become very attached to one of the ornaments and took it to bed with her. There was one ornament that was broken during the decorating, but considering the kids' ages, I'm surprised that it was only one!


In the end, we finished the decorating and are pleased with the results...