Friday, December 14, 2007

Tree Getting

"We're going to go waaaaaay up into the woods and cut down our Christmas Tree this year," my husband told our wide-eyed children when they asked us where our tree would come from.

"Like, hike in and pick out any tree we want?" They asked.

"Oh yeah guys, any tree we want," their Daddy answered.

"How will we get it home?" said Katie.

"How will we get it to the car?" said Wyatt.

"Can I cut it down?" said McRae.

After reassuring Katie that it would not fall off the roof of our car, and explaining to Wyatt that we'd all help drag it from it's living location to our vehicle, and letting McRae know that he could help as much as he wanted in the actual "cutting" down of the tree, it turns out it didn't really matter.

It didn't matter, because this year, we got our tree at the grocery store.

You heard it right, the grocery store.

(What? Don't you take pictures of your kids inside the grocery store?)

If I have learned anything since becoming a mother, it is that one must be flexible during the holidays. Sometimes there isn't enough time to buy a parks permit, outfit everyone in snow shoes, pack a picnic lunch complete with hand warmers for everyone and travel into the wilderness to pick out the perfect Christmas Tree. Sometimes the middle of December creeps upon you and there are little choices in where the tree actually comes from.

And does it really matter?

I don't think so.

What matters is that we, as a family, picked out our tree the first available moment of unscheduled time we had (when both parents were present to help).

So out into the rainy night we travelled, all the way to the grocery store! There were candy canes, and hot cocoa and cider and even helpers wearing Santa hats! There were tons of pretty trees to choose from and wouldn't you know it? We bought the first one we saw (we aren't very picky about our trees - well, maybe I am a little picky, but in this case I just wanted to get a nice looking tree with no bald spots). Which is a good thing, because it figures that it would start raining buckets the minute we decided to go get our tree. We didn't have time to be choosy.

(And no, Katie, it didn't fall off of the car!)

(And I don't think we'd find him, the happiest Salvation Army Bell Ringer, in the middle of the woods, would we?)

How happy am I with our Christmas Tree this year?

Very, it's perfect.

Did we have a good experience?

Yup.

I'll admit that I am looking forward to strapping on my snow shoes and venturing into the woods to get our next one. But if life gets too busy, like it did this year, there's always this grocery store!

13 comments:

Grim Reality Girl said...

AMEN to that sister!!! I'm so glad to hear you can live the dream this way. It is one of those years here too. THANK YOU for making me feel better!

flutter said...

ok that photo of her with the umbrella?!? CLASSIC.

Girlplustwo said...

its about the togetherness, the love, the family. doesn't matter where we do it.

nicely done, sister.

painted maypole said...

ha HA!

Way to make lemonade from lemons! or... at least mix up the powder you bought at the store. ;)

:P said...

hello! just dropping by... you have a beautiful family by the way. happy holidays!

=D

Family Adventure said...

Absolutely...flexibility is the name of the game. Plus those big smiles on your kids' faces :)

Heidi

Redneck Mommy said...

Looks like a great tree. The ones we get out of the bush always look like Charlie Brown trees. And there are no happy bell wavers around either...

Kellan said...

What a cute post and I love the picture with Katy under the umbrella and you can't see her face - too cute! Glad you found the exact perfect tree for you perfect little family! Now that is one more memory, isn't it? Take care. Kellan

Kyla said...

This is holiday spirit, indeed. There is only so much time and sometimes the grandness doesn't matter, all that matters is being together and bringing home a tree you all love.

LindaJ said...

When I was a kid living on the oregon coast, we didn't have tree farms and my dad was a logger, the last place he wanted to go was the woods and look at trees, I thought everyone went to the grocery store to get Christmas trees until i moved to Washington. Oh, and same with pumpkins...not too many of those on the coast either.
It's all about the togetherness. They won't remeber where the tree came from, they will just remember that they had one.

Ann(ie) said...

um, I'm with you. I'm getting ours at Rite Aid. How terribly festive, huh??? But, there's a Starbucks next door so I can multitask and get a peppermint mocha, too. ;)

Becky at lifeoutoffocus said...

aw but those are great pics even if they're at the grocery store!

OhTheJoys said...

It's the perfect tree!