To Find the Perfect Christmas Tree

 

Last month we set out for our yearly Christmastime tradition…to find and cut down our own Christmas tree.  But due to the drought we had a few years ago, plus a sudden trend of EVERYONE wanting a real tree, we visited four Christmas tree farms before we found one big enough for our family 😀

 

This picture was taken on our way to the first tree farm…we spent 2 1/2 hours just visiting three farms that day!

 

This farm has been our favorite, but so many other people had gotten trees the week before we came, that there were only 4-6 foot trees…and these baby trees…to pick from.  A six-foot tree might not sound that short…but to us, it’s short, especially with all of the ornaments we have to put on it 😉

 

Tree farm no. 2.  Either the trees were too short, too scraggly, or the trunk was twisted.

 

We didn’t even take pictures of tree farm no. 3.  We didn’t even get out of the car…just drove around and saw that, alas, that farm wasn’t going to work either!

 

Then came Henslers!  Mommy had been doing some scouting online for nearby tree farms, and while this one was about 40 minutes away, we wanted a tall fat tree quite badly 😉  They had these fun signs as we came in…and unfortunately we can’t find the pictures we took of them all…but there was a set of signs every so often that continued a story of the perfect evergreen that couldn’t wait for its family to come find it 😀

 

And there were these signs…

 

We saw the 12 foot trees in the front and got pretty excited 😀  We only have a nine-foot ceiling, but seeing anything over 6 feet was great!

 

 

 We got to see their pretty little shops, and their reindeer, plus some other farm animals. The goats were cute…but hey!  We see goats every single day 😀  We were more interested in the reindeer and peacocks.  It was too dark to get good pictures, but you can see some of the deer on their website.

 

 Oh!  the lovely tall trees!

 

Happy smiles

 

 

They had these nice little ‘tree carts’ so that you didn’t have to drag the tree on the ground (like we usually do!).  Charissa decided to try to catch a ride 😀

 

Inspecting one of the trees…

 

A grainy picture of Cassia, Leah, myself, and Susannah…it was getting dark and phone cameras don’t like the dark 😀  We started running out of daylight and had to make our tree decision quick. We don’t usually make our tree decision very quickly, because there are at least 9 or 10 opinions as to what the perfect tree should look like 😉

 

We finally settled on a tree that was about 8 feet tall…a little short for us ‘kids’ liking, because we like them to scrape the ceiling, but we all agreed that it was nice in every other way, and 8 feet was passable 😉

 

How do we measure the tree?  We say, “Susannah, come over here!”  She’s a little over 6 feet, so we figure with her arms up, that’s about 8 feet 😀

 

Then it was time to decorate the tree…

 

 

Daddy and Mommy always sit behind one of our dining room benches and lay out all of the ornaments…

 We get a new one every year that has something to do with what happened that year.  Unless nothing of great importance happened…then we just get something cute.  It seems to usually be a nativity scene (see video at end of post) 😀

 

This year’s ornament was an airplane since we all took Discovery Flights/airplane rides this year (we are still planning a post on that one 😉 )

 

There is also a little bit of a competition on who can get their ornament the highest…

 

 

 But we do have to fill in the bottom as well!

 

 Susannah, playing with the cat 😀

 

 

 Doesn’t she look so cute and innocent?

 

 

We all have our favorite ornaments that we like to hang up too…and there is much argument I mean, discussion, on a few of them 😀  There’s a little mouse playing a violin that we got the year I started playing violin.  But the mouse is holding it like a cello.  So Susannah and Cassia insist that it’s a cello and they should hang it up 😀  And Rebekah and Susannah race to be the ones to hang up the golden retriever we got the year we got ‘Clover’, and the Shih-Tzu we got when we had ‘Pooh’ 🙂

 

 There is also a tradition to hang the ‘icicles’ on our ears…like earrings 😀

And Noel is being…Noel.  She’s so playful!

 

 More icicle earrings…

 

 This progression of pictures makes me laugh!

We always make Chocolate Mint Brownie Cookies for the night that we decorate the tree.  This year we brought them right into the living room and set them on the piano…by Leah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Charissa made her guinea pig, Chloe, her own ornament…

 

I asked her if she had shown Chloe yet, because it was her ornament, after all!  She said that she hadn’t, so I took it upon myself to show her, lol!

 

 The cat wanted to see, too…

 

We also always sign a paper airplane when we put the tree up, as well as when we take it down.  We started writing on this plane in 2001?  At least that long ago.  We’re running out of room to squeeze our names in!  It has the names of a couple of our dogs on it, and probably Charissa wrote Noel’s name on it this year.

 

 Our favorite Mommy 😉

 

 

We’ve also put together a little video of all the chatter that goes on…and the bantering.  Maybe my favorite part is Susannah rocking her cradle ornament…or Anna’s ‘breaking news’…

 

 

 

 

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