Our Christmas Tree Adventure

This year we decided that since there was not any snow yet, we would be adventurous and cut down our own Christmas tree. I had visions of my childhood where my family would go up to a Christmas tree farm, find a bushy green evergreen tree, cut it down, have some cocoa, decorate it as a family, and end up with a picture perfect Christmas tree worthy of being in a holiday movie. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving we went up into the forest with some of our friends determined to find the perfect tree. It didn't take us long to realize however that bushy evergreen trees do not grow in this part of Idaho. The only kind of trees that seem to inhabit the forests here are Ponderosa pines a.k.a. "cactus trees" that are sparce with upward facing branches. We searched to find the bushiest one possible and brought it home. As sad as I was that our tree turned out to be more of a Charlie Brown tree than a picture perfect tree, our family did have fun going out together searching for the tree. I am happy for the memories, but we are still deciding whether we want to do this again next year, or just break down and buy a gorgeous full fake tree. I just feel like I am copping out on "real" Christmas traditions if we do that. Plus, I do like the smell of pine that fills my house every year when we get a real tree. Oh the dilemmas. :)
Our Adventure

No matter what our tree looked like, the girls had a blast decorating it.

I think we had more fun decorating Avery than we did decorating the tree.