Cut Your Own....

A few weeks ago, the Northern Clan returned from visiting family for a wonderful Thanksgiving and immediately set their sights on ushering in the Christmas season. What's the first thing that one needs to do in order to create a Christmas vibe in the home? Of course - put up a Christmas tree!

An (gasp!) artificial tree was prohibited (in fact, Northern Daddy almost lost his life a few years ago for even suggesting the purchase of a "fake" tree). Not much better was the idea of finding a nice pre-cut tree from a parking lot vendor. According to Northern Mommy, a magnificent specimen of a Christmas tree that was locally sourced, organically-grown, and carefully cut down by our own family would be the only type of tree allowed through our door. (I had slightly lower standards: green would be a good color....)

We set off towards White's Tree Farm - a Christmas Tree Farm a few miles down the road - in search of our tree. ( Actually, I think the whole thing was rigged: we travel past this tree farm several times a week, and NorthernMommy is always scoping out the trees as we pass by. I'm pretty sure that she already had our tree picked out back in July, and was just waiting until it was time to pick it up!)

We arrived about an hour before closing - which was also about an hour after the sun went down. We almost backed down at the challenge of selecting a tree in the dark, but decided to make it an adventure and grabbed our flashlight and a saw and headed into the night.

As you can see from the photo below, after stumbling over stumps and eyeballing a few dozen trees (ever realize that all of the trees look alike? - just pick the first one you find!), we located our winner. Levi thought we were going to take home the little tree he's standing beside; we had to explain that we needed to leave the little ones to grow up bigger, and that we were taking home the giant standing behind him. We (meaning NorthernDaddy) put the saw to our tree, and before long, it was in place on our sled for the drag back to the car. Levi insisted on providing an honor guard for our procession - he marched solemnly along one arm's length to the rear of the sled. On the way, we hit a bump, throwing the tree off the sled to the side of the path. Levi showed an extreme amount of concern (jumping in place and shouting, "Oh No!" over and over again) until the tree was returned to its place on the sled.

After the tree was safely transported home (and we fought with the tree stand for a few hours - unsuccessfully - we ended up with a new stand the next day), the decorating could begin! Now that NorthernToddler is almost two, he has been promoted to Assistant Christmas Tree Light Installer.

After the lights were on the tree and approved by the Decorating Committee, the tough work of placing ornaments was at hand. Good thing that we have a hard-working elf to help with the job! (Yes, he climbed that ladder by himself, and no, he didn't successfully put even one ornament on a tree branch by himself!)

Lights on, ornaments hung; our tree is complete! Time to start the caroling, the parties, the shopping (ugh!), the cookies, and enjoying warm holiday spirits from those around us! Merry Christmas!