and we're off

We arrived home from a little Thanksgiving holiday, raring and ready to begin our Christmas festivities! 

Having already completed our pre-decorating (i.e. wreaths, christmas village and calendar) the final tid-bit remaining was to acquire and decorate our tree.

Now, that may sound easy to you, maybe you purchase one at a nearby grocery store, or sail, apple cider in hand around a carefully manicured lot brimming with flawlessly contoured evergreens. That is not the case here on the farm.

We don't settle for those fancy schmance douglas firs or your swanky blue spruces. Nay, for us, it's a hand cut, straight from the fields, cedar. Beautful and bushy, maybe a little smashed in places, nearly always to big, with plenty of bald spots, and if the light shines just so thru the window, you can see all the way thru it. 

Classy, I tell you:)

It was an unseasonably warm day, with temperatures predicted to plunge as dusk fell. So we piled into the ole truck and took off thru the hills, the bigger kiddos belting out their very own rendition of All I Want For Christmas is A Tree, while Eleanor added in the thumping bass beat "Glo-ry, Bob-by, Glo-ry, Bob-by." 

After a few long minutes Kaleb and I gave each other the look- it said pick a tree and pick it fast! We glanced up and there she was, in all her full glory, our tree. She was a beaut, meant just for us.

Kaleb did all the dirty work while the wee babe watched on in frenzied excitement. The big three still too wrapped up in their  shrieking tunes to even notice or hear a chainsaw raging in the background. 

We loaded it up and headed on in search of the final treasure on our quest- mistletoe. It was only 20 or 30 feet up, no big deal for a manly man like my hubby. He shimmied his way up and out, sending down shoots of the stuff like drops of hail falling from the heavens.

After a brief intermission for Kaleb and I to wrangle our prize into the house and in the stand. . . we lit her up. Much to the kids exhilaration, the time had ultimately arrived to decorate.

It's what I would call an eclectic tree, littered with the likes of spiderman dog tags, whittled sticks and t-ball medals. The wilds literally found anything that could possibly hang, no heed to sentimental gems or one of a kind trinkets.

Finally, we all took a step back and looked at her in all her glory, it was far and away our best tree yet. It screams of kids, craziness, happiness and laughter. 

Together we nuzzled up under the glow of the lights and read our first holiday book of the season, and as I read and my mind slowed a bit from the chaos that is decorating a tree with four little bits, peace washed over me. We were finally ready to begin, to start new traditions hopefully combined with old, to remember, to celebrate.