Tree Shopping

A few weeks ago, while Grandma Dee was still visiting, all of us including Flash, piled into the truck to go pick out our Christmas tree. Every year we go to The Gardener's parents' house and select a tree from somewhere in their 80 acre field. Of course these don't come pre-lit like the plastic and wire artificial set-ups, but I'll gladly take a messy, local, real tree over fake any year. Isn't that the tradition of the Christmas tree anyway? To bring the outdoors in? Plus, it's a fun excuse to get all bundled up and drive through the snowy fields in our truck, bouncing around with the 4 wheel drive engaged.

After much scrutiny, we chose this beauty.

Unlike Chevy Chase's character Clark in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, my husband remembered to bring along a saw.
The dogs were of little help.


After I strung the tree with lights (and in the process glued my fingers together with tree sap), the girls hung all of the ornaments. Some had to be repositioned after we found 4 or 5 ornaments hanging on a single branch. Part of me wanted to leave them there because it was so unique and a real work of art, I just didn't want any handmade ornaments to fall and be destroyed by a certain four legged shredding machine.