Sorry I have been missing the past few weeks. Our house has been hit by some nasty bug, and I think we are finally getting on top of it, but it has been ROUGH. And I usually luck out and skip out on whatever everyone is passing around since I am exposed to everything and anything in the ER, but this one hit me hard too. So Friday was our day to go and cut down our Christmas tree. Clint quietly makes a case every year that we could just get a plastic fake tree that goes up in a matter of minutes and doesn’t leave a trail of needles all over the house and I tell him that he is Scrooge. The place we go to cut trees is a little over a 2 hour drive and stopped on the way to get my parents and their truck. When we turned off to the service road there were signs saying that chains and 4 wheeled drive was required to go farther. We parked the van and all piled into my dad’s truck, which is a lot of fun with 3 car seats. There was a lot of giggles and laughs, except for Edric who didn’t really understand what was going on and I think was afraid that he was being taken away by someone again and had huge tears. I comforted him and before long he realized whatever was going on was going to be ok and we were ready to go. It was a good reminder of how just under the surface his feelings and fears still are. Initially the road wasn’t bad but then it changed as we pulled into the area that is set aside for cutting. And just in case you are picturing lovely Christmas trees all growing in rows and looking amazing, let me paint the picture a little clearer- these are your every day, real forest trees that are windblown, weather worn, and make Charlie Browne’s tree look like the White House’s tree. But that’s ok. However the road was terrible, there was a section that was a big hill and it was a solid sheet of ice. As we turned the bend to start up that hill there were three large trucks all stuck in various angles, one completely off the road and one ½ way hanging over a small drop. Clint and my dad got out and started to help push and dig out the trucks in front of us. Before long a ranger drove up in his truck and he had a lot of sand and buckets in the back and they started shoveling trying to get the people out. They were eventually able to. And then it was our turn to try and make it up the icy hill. We took one attempt and didn’t make it. Part of me was disappointed but we all agreed with the three little guys with us it wasn’t worth the risk of trying it again and getting stuck or going off the road. And so we drove back down and ate our lunch in the van. In the end Clint and my dad stopped in the truck on the way home and picked out a tree from a local farm that was already cut and didn’t involve risky icy driving. It’s a beautiful tree. It’s also VERY LARGE. Like I HAD TO REARRANGE THE LIVING ROOM LARGE. And it doesn’t really have a top, but its so LARGE that I’m not sure one can even tell.
Saturday we decorated the tree and also decorated the little trees (ok really just random branches) for the boys’ rooms. I decided this year to just let them put the ornaments on where they wanted. We have many plastic balls and so there is a large concentration of ornaments at about the 2/3 year old height. There’s another concentration at about a 6 year old height. There are large sections with few decorations and then all the glass balls are at a “mommy or daddy on the ladder height”. It’s a great tree and the boys also had fun decorating the twigs that we put in their rooms.
And so while it may not have turned out the way we initially planned, we have a tree, we have 5 stockings hanging up this year, and we are all waiting and ready to celebrate our Lord’s birth.
Hiking Mommy 