Peter finally convinced me this year to go up North and cut down a Christmas tree. I have always been opposed because his plans involved me sitting in the back seat with a squirmy, crying  kiddo while getting motion sick for 5 hours while he sipped hot chocolate, sang along to Christmas songs and drove his oh-so-precious truck.

He agreed to move the location to a much more reasonable destination and went the first day permits were available to ensure that we got the right area. The plan was that we would drive up just north of Payson, get our tree, eat a picnic brunch and head back while the munchkin napped. When I told our friends Beth and Grant of our plans, the wanted to join. So now we would have a party for our Griswold style tree hunting. We were certain it would be a disaster, but hopefully a hilarious disaster.

Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans. She decided to dump 2 feet of snow on the usually dry area the day before our trip. After looking at the web cams and the road conditions, we decided it wasn’t safe to risk an accident or getting stuck. So we opted for church, breakfast and tree hunting at a lot with our friends.

PW and I each can’t remember the last time we had a real tree. We have an awesome, pre-lit version that is so easy we just always go with that. But the live version is pretty great – we bought from a local nursery and the thing might as well have been cut down by us it’s so fresh! Here are the highlights:

Getting her in place.

Uncle Grant ATTACK!!!

Aunt Beth 🙂

Straightening it out…again. It only fell over twice.

Ta da!! I was trying to get tricky with my camera to get lots of light, but it didn’t quite pan out…

Who is that teenie, tiny lady?!

Old School

From the time I was little, I remember Mame had this on her dresser.

I’ve actually done a good job of making a photo ornament for each year. I love looking at all of them!