Long before Thanksgiving the kids started scheming about this year's Chirstmas tree. Even in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving Day hubbub, we managed to pile into the truck the next mroning headed for our favorite hole-in-the-wall Christmas tree farm just 10 minutes from our house. (I still marvel that we're ablet to drive to the farm, select and cut down the tree, load it on the car, and get it back to our house in the same time it took us to drive to the farm outside the city in Seattle.)
In our excitement we managed to slow down for the bumps in the road as we approached the farm, only to learn it didn't open until the following day (which was, for us, booked). So we collected our crestfallen faces and headed back home. Every day the next week we had to hear from kids all about how we didn't have our tree yet. Last Saturday morning we headed back in the direction of the tree farm, stopping this time 
at Deb's Veranda, a new breakfast and lunch place right on our way. Gavin held his own with a full stack of chocolate chip pancakes, and Arwen had some help downing her pumpkin stack. How fun to be out for breakfast together!
at Deb's Veranda, a new breakfast and lunch place right on our way. Gavin held his own with a full stack of chocolate chip pancakes, and Arwen had some help downing her pumpkin stack. How fun to be out for breakfast together!Full of yummy food, we returned to the Christmas tree farm which was, thankfully, open. 
As irony would have it, reminiscent of all our soggy summer outings it began raining rather heavily. It took us a couple of trips around the farm (just enough to get soaked) before we found a tree to our liking. Chad confirmed that it was indeed the desired Friendly Fir rather than a Sharp Spruce and had it cut down in no time. We managed to set it up in the living room just in time to head back to the church for the second day of the Choir & Creche program.
As irony would have it, reminiscent of all our soggy summer outings it began raining rather heavily. It took us a couple of trips around the farm (just enough to get soaked) before we found a tree to our liking. Chad confirmed that it was indeed the desired Friendly Fir rather than a Sharp Spruce and had it cut down in no time. We managed to set it up in the living room just in time to head back to the church for the second day of the Choir & Creche program.
Sunday we spent a fun afternoon together decorating the tree. Ten years into collecting ornaments commemorating significant family 
events, trimming the tree has become quite the family history experience. There's the golden gondola from our first trip to Venice, the model shelves in honor of the bookcases we built the first year of our marriage, the 
oak leaf from an early jaunt through Vermont and New Hampshire, the frog my dad carved from wood harvested during our family trip to Costa Rica, the paddling Santa commemorating our kayak purchase, and from this year - two ornaments showing Gavin and Arwen dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.Now that we're all decked out, let the home holiday festivities begin!
2 comments:
I like the idea of ornaments creating a family history tree. What a treasure!
We have an ornament tradition too! We do one ornament each year that we try to have represent a big event. They can be hard to find/figure out sometimes.
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