Charlie Brown's got nothing on us...

We've had to put off our usual trip to cut down our Christmas tree three times, now. We usually go the 1st weekend of Advent but each time we thought we could go, something has come up. The children were ready to cut down the neighbor's tree and drag it into the living room, so we decided to skip the long trip and just get a tree from our parish boy scout's lot. Last year, we had to go there as well because we had a huge ice storm and all of the trees at the farm were covered in inches of ice. We bought a tree still bound up from under a tarp sight unseen. It was surprisingly close to our usual tree.

What our usual tree lacks in beauty and form it makes up for in sheer size and girth. We buy the big dumb ox of the Christmas tree world. If our trees had legs they would be galumphing around like giant dumb cyclopses. I give you examples from a few year's worth of our past Christmas cards...








ok, so you can't really see the tree so much, but trust me. They are curled over at the top and completely shapeless. But, we love them.

This year we all pile into the car and head to the pizza place and then out to the tree lot. First, we haven't been to the pizza place in awhile and I was shocked at how much it cost us, but I figured we were saving it on gas not driving out to the country to the tree farm. So bellies full and trips to the bathroom before we left, we headed to the tree lot. oh wait. That's right. Someone is going to have to pee before we drive those 2 miles. Yep, there it is. Jellybean screaming from the back seat that she is going to wet her pants right now! just minutes after having gone. So, we swing by our house where the power of suggestion overcomes the Meatball and Porkchop. With everyone's bladder empty, we arrive at the lot. We are a bit skeptical because already it is slim pickins. I'm about to suggest we wait and go to the farm on Friday, but I catch Chowder's eye and turn to see the kids gleefully winding through the sparse aisles. I knew we wouldn't be leaving without a tree.

Did I mention it was 29 degrees? It was. It didn't take long for me to give up any hope of getting a galumph a tree and told the kids to pick out whatever tree they wanted. I didn't care. If they liked it, we would buy it. They found a tree in about 5 minutes, I snapped a quick picture, gave Chowder the money, and coralled everyone back to the van. It didn't look that bad at the lot but once we got it home to our 10 foot ceilings, the poor little thing seemed to shrink. But, isn't that the beauty of children and Christmas? Look at Jellybean. Do you think she gives a crap that this is a mere imitation of a Cakes Family Christmas tree? Of course she doesn't even notice.

ok. So maybe I can love that cute little feller of a tree. But next year, I want a gigantamungous tree.



Please note: Since last year I didn't get all my decorations down until early March, I decided that we would decorate with ornaments made from recyclable paper so we could just throw it all in the recycling bin and be done with it. Let's just hope that Chowder doesn't get creative with the tree removal again this year.