O Christmas Tree

Something we haven't done in quite some time is choose a Christmas tree...outside. I got to choose a tree last year from the comfort of Aisle C12 at Target. 

Both Brandon and I grew up with authentic, fresh from the great outdoors Christmas trees and enjoyed the hunt for the perfect tree. Some of my fondest Christmas memories revolve around bundling up like the brother in A Christmas Story, and traipsing up and down what seemed like a very organized forest, only able to move my arms enough to point in the general direction of a tree I thought looked good. My Dad transformed into a lumberjack and hacked down the tree of choice with ease. I remember watching the trees go through the machine that envelopes them in a net, the hot chocolate, the snow angels, the pine needles everywhere, the funny sizes and shapes we ended up with and our homemade ornaments finally adorning the prickly needles. I don't remember having to trim it, chop off more of the trunk, watering it, etc. - all the adult jobs that apparently I inherited when I grew up. Bah humbug. So while it may cause my dear ol' Dad to shake his head and wonder what he did wrong, I have insisted on an artificial tree since marriage - partly budgetary, partly laziness. I like to think of it as reserving those fun times and memories for the family I came from. My poor kids will have to find different, more plastic memories.

Grandma and Grandpa Richards have a tradition as well and still hunt for the perfect tree on their friend's Christmas tree lot. It was a beautiful day when we left and was quite nearly blizzard conditions when we got there - 5 minutes away. Mason would have been fine if the wind hadn't swirled all the snow directly in his face, so he and I gracefully bowed out soon after we arrived, taking Grandma with us "for moral support." He looked for a Christmas tree like a little man - a very cozy warm little man - waiting it out in the truck, reading books and looking out the window at the poor saps freezing their appendages off and inhaling snowflakes.

We did pull him out at the end and he loved it, once the wind settled down. He tasted it, crawled in it and rolled around happily, trying to catch it. He had two firsts in one day - snow and a meet and greet with the dog from The Sandlot. The Woodbury's dog took an interest in Mason, as did several onlookers that I caught in a photo of him taste tasting the white stuff. He gets a lot of double takes. Particularly when he cheeks are squeezed into a pom pom hat.

We did manage to get a few cute photos of the whole thing and had some fun. We'll always have the memories - and a beautiful artificial tree waiting for us in storage.