OUR Christmas Tree

We live in the land of the Christmas Tree.  Oregon’s Willamette Valley is one of the world’s leading producers of them and the particular ‘hill’ that we live on crawls with Christmas Tree fields.  So when I considered by-passing having a tree in our house this year, to avoid incidents with Kaden, I knew it would be unrealistic.  And a bit silly.  And have since realized, unnecessary! 

This past weekend we visited our good friends’ tree field and after a half an hour of me “hmming and hawing” and countless “ooh, look at this one!” we picked one.  Gage and Cooper ran around playing ‘Hunt the T-Rex’ with our friends’ grandsons, totally bi-passing the family-unity part of this holiday tradition.  But they had a blast, so oh well.  Matt began to cut it down with his hand saw and I said, “Wait, I have to get a picture!”  He replies from under the tree, “Don’t worry, this will take a while.”  I try to adjust my settings and then wack, I hear it hit the ground not even 15 seconds later!  I guess he underestimated himself.

Then the 4 little boys took it upon themselves to haul it out of the patch and up to our car.  That was my favorite part.      

It was surprisingly dry when we got it home so we quickly rearranged some furniture, brought it in, and started vacuuming.  That is a must. 

The decorating had to wait until the next day, when we were able to get more strands of lights…

Cooper appointed himself the official “back of the tree decorator” and did a mighty fine job of covering a 1 foot square area with about 20 ornaments. 

Speaking of ornaments… this one is Kaden’s…

This one is mine (from 1981)…

And this one is just pretty…

And drinking Peppermint Hot Chocolate (from Costco… SERIOUSLY. SO. GOOD!) by the tree has become a daily activity. 

Have you ever done something year after year and then one year finally realize there is a BETTER way to do it, and you bonk yourself on the head and say “Why didn’t we think of this 5 years ago??”  That’s what we’re thinking in regard to where we put our tree this year.  Previously, we crammed it into our living room, allowing it to take up 1/3 of the walking/playing space.  This year, we moved out our small table and put the tree inside the breakfast nook’s bay window. 

It is so much happier there.  And now we’re eating in our dining room and surprise, surprise, the boys are SO much more behaved during meal time! 

All is well in Christmas Tree Land.  Kaden hasn’t climbed it yet, Cooper hasn’t climbed it yet (although he keeps cuddling up on the window sill and hiding behind it) and Gage is actually reminding me to water it. 

So, it looks like this tree may actually last until Christmas!