As the Christmas Season has been quickly nipping at our heels, and with little motivation to celebrate in our hearts (not a grinchy type inclining, but rather a no money, can't really do much type of frustration), we decided (actually I decided, he was dragged along begrudgingly) that we would not only go out and attain a REAL LIVE Christmas tree, but we would be woodsy and rustic and go chop down a tree out in the forest!
Now, the reason my husband may have been a tad bit apprehensive of this adventure is because as he has now been in our family for awhile, and has heard the family "let's go get a tree" quests into the woods where me and my brother, and our Asian student would go and watch and walk for HOURS as my darling mother (with all her style and class and taste) would inspect tree after tree after tree, and each time my ever-loyal fajah would go to chop it down, us waiting with bait breathe, she would exclaim "Wait!" and all of us would let out the collective sigh, shake out heads, and follow her deeper and deeper into the woods in search of the perfect Christmas tree (aka The Holy Grail). Since hearing these stories of us being out in the woods for hours on end, my darling hubby, having noticed I have many of the my mother's idiosyncrasies, was a little frightened that I may begin to display this same behavior when picking out a tree. I assured him I would not keep him out in the woods for hours. The conversation in the car on the way there went as follows :

Tennille: I'm SO excited, this is going to be great, and better yet it won't cost us anything.
Tom: Yeah for sure, um...Honey?
Tennille: Yeah?
Tom: Can you, um, well, promise me that your not going to be like your mom?
Tennille: What's that supposed to mean?
Tom: Well, I know you want to to be nice and everything, but maybe we should put a time limit on this.
Tennille: Oh don't worry, it won't be that long.
Tom: No, I want to hear you say the words, PROMISE me, you won't be like your mom
Tennille:...... I'm not promising that.
Tom: BABY!
Tennille: By the way, do you even know how to chop down a tree?
Tom : Yes I know how to chop down a tree!
Tennille: Just checkin'.

So once we had a few things sorted out, off we were on our grand adventure. We printed off our permit, and went off to the wild areas of unowned land to begin our search. We went up this deserted back road, and found a cluster of Christmas-like looking trees and got out of the truck. As we were walking towards them, Tom took one step into the snow, and it went up to his knee, he looked back at me and stated " Oh yeah, this was a GREAT idea. We could have gotten an artificial tree, but NOOOO." so on we trudged up to the group of trees, and Tom went and started cutting down the first tree he saw, and I quickly stopped him, to which he rolled his eyes, and stated "You Promised!" I quickly retorted "No I didn't", and stuck my tongue out. So mature, I know, but come on, even if he didn't want to admit it, he had fun. Needless to say, none of the Christmas-looking type trees spoke to me, so we kept going until we came upon another batch of trees, and to which none of them was "the one". We got back in our car and drove a little further up the road, and as we were passing a clearing, one lone tree stood alone on a mound, and I slammed on the breaks and exclaimed "That One!" Tom exclaimed "Thank God!" So we went out again and chopped down our tree (it almost fell on me), dragged it to the car, and had to become quite inventive in order to figure out how we were going to fit it into our vehicle, but got it in just the same.
As we arrived home, after quite a bit of haggling and persuading, the tree finally got up in our living room, and let me tell you she's a beauty! Cy and I decorated it, which was an adventure all on it's own due to a slight height issue. I did contemplate running and jumping at it, similar to Will Farrell in ELF, but the pine needles scared me off.
So there ya go, to those of you who have been waiting in anticipation to see when I would rise again with a post, here it is, and Merry Christmas!!!

Song of the day: All I want for Christmas is You - Olivia Olsen

posted by Tennille @ 11:29 AM

4 Comments:

At 12:50 PM, Lana said…

I miss Christmas Tree hunting Around the Loops, The joy of the whole thing was to be out in the wonderful woods for a few hours:) We always had beautiful Charley Brown Christmas trees, I guess that is why I don't mind having a branch this year
At 8:54 PM, D said…

That was a good story. I can totally hear your voices carrying on that conversation. Haven't seen you guys for a while. Hope you have a great Christmas.
At 6:29 PM, Anonymous said…

I think I might have to stop over to get a look at this amazing tree!
At 2:54 AM, Anonymous said…

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you!
I feel like Christmas isn't the same without your decorating abilities, your cooking abilities and your humor. Are you starting to become like your mom? Hello chocolate fountain!