Horray! It's Saved!

The excitement is building here for the anticipated holiday of Christmas. The kids are getting more excited with each passing day. I love to see the magic in their eyes. The stories that they tell and the pure joy that they express over every aspect of the holiday is so fufilling.

Those that know us know that we are not a very religious family. Even so, we have our spiritual chats about our beliefs and yes, the true meaning of Christmas. Before it was even December, Austin asked me if we could bake a cake for Christmas this year. I knew why but thought I'd ask him to get his point of view. His response was, "To celebrate Jesus's Birthday. You know he was born on Christmas Day, right Mom?" Oh, how it touched my heart. I agreed that we would bake a birthday cake in His honor and also reminded him that his very own Great Grandpa was born on Christmas Day too! Amazing what children know even though they have never been to Church before, isn't it?

This weekend was quite exciting eventful stressful. After my middle of the night trip to the ER on Thursday and arriving home Friday evening, I was higher than a kite and unable to care for myself let alone my own children sent right to bed. I woke up Saturday still feeling groggy, sore and just not quite put together. However, we did manage to fufill part of our plans for the day.

We started our day by going out to lunch with our very good friends and then went to pick out our Christmas Trees together. The weather was quite chilly and Jonathon was not too happy about planting his mittenless hands directly into a frigid pile of snow but we managed to get the trees without too many problems.

Let me share a little secret about picking the perfect Christmas Tree! As a child, I remember spending an awfully long time deciding as a family if this tree was any more perfect than the tree three rows back and six rows to the left. I remember marking one tree with a scarf or a human and the rest of us marching back and forth between the two chosen trees until a decision was made. Back then, it seemed like it took an eternity.

Now, as an adult, the tree picking is a totally different senerio.

We all pile out at the tree farm, grab a cart and throw pile as many children on it while the others bicker about who gets to pull the cart. Obviously, one person had an easy ride around the tree farm!




We walk to the farthest section of the tree farm, in the coldest December weather, to find the most perfect tree ever. We look around for a whopping three four okay, five minutes before deciding that we've found the tree that will both fit in our livingroom and look stunning with a variety of beautifully wrapped gifts underneath it. We have a brief, "This one okay? You sure? This one it is, then. conversation with the kids and Tim assumes the position of the designated tree cutter. And by golly, this year, before I could even have my camera up and ready to go, he had the tree already cut down!



We loaded it and trotted back to the shaker. After having it drilled, shaken, wrapped and loaded, we took a quick wagon ride while sitting on ice cubes little plastic seats all while freezing our buns off.




(Our friend with her daughter and our girls)

On our way home, the majority of us wanted to stay home to decorate the tree, listen to Christmas carols and just have family time. We checked with our friends and switched plans to just hang at our house.

The decorations were hauled out, the tree stand was brought in and the tree was placed on the stand. By the way, we have the most perfect tree stand ever. No adjusting. Ever. That is, unless your husband decides to chop a tree off that is taller than your ceilings, has the tree farm trim the bottom but not nearly enough, and once the tree is placed on the stand the tree top and the ceiling become one. Yeah, unless that happens. Or worse.

Since testosterone was running throughout the house, the men decided to cut more of the trunk off, redrill the hole, and reset the tree on the stand. Cut-Drill-Stand. One problem, gentlemen. The hole isn't drilled big enough to put it on the stand.

AhHa! No problem for the testosterone filled genius here (ahem, my husband)! Lets take a hammer and wack on the bottom of the tree stand, driving the spike of the stand up into the bottom of the tree trunk deep within the not-quite-big-enough-hole that you pre-drilled. No Problem. Right?

Wrong!!!!

About the fifth whack, the hammer smashed right through the water bowl of the tree stand leaving a nice gaping hole. *sigh*

After a phone call to the tree farm to find out a replacement bowl could be purchased for $4 but not picked up until Sunday and realizing that the children would be greatly upset by not getting to decorate their tree that night, we came up with a quick fix.

After retrieving an old plastic mixing bowl, our friend swapped out the bowl from our cupboard with the broken bowl off the tree stand. The hole in the trunk was drilled a bit more and with more careful hammering, the tree was firmly planted on the stand. With a working water dish, even!

And this, my friends, is

The Year that Uncle Damon Saved Christmas!

We continued the evening decorating the tree, listening to Christmas carols, eating dinner and watching movies. What a memorable evening!

More photos from our tree hunting:


(Emilee & Katelyn)


(Emilee, Katelyn & Paige)


(Friend cutting their tree down)