Today we went and cut down our Christmas tree, so I was going to just post a quick post about it and be done. But then I got to remembering our past few years of Christmas tree hunting and decorating and I decided to take us all on a trip back in time.
The first Christmas we celebrated together as a family we still lived in a cave and our camera only used film. I know, depressing isn't it? But in 2006 we sped into the future and found ourselves in possession of a digital camera. Therefor my photographic history starts with our 2006 Christmas. But first, a bit of background...
Growing up we always went to a tree farm to cut down our tree. I remember running around in the mud, getting filthy while my Dad would settle himself on a tarp under our chosen tree, cursing at the stupid saw which was not cutting said stupid tree. Eventually he would get it cut down, and we would be back at the car, stripping off our wet jeans and shoes and socks, and changing into sweats and warm socks, just in time for a cup of hot chocolate from the thermos my mom always brought. I don't ever remember a time that we went to a tree lot to get a tree, so its always been really important to me that my kids have this same memory of Christmas tree hunting. I will admit, I did cheat Killian's 4th Christmas, our first one in our very own apartment (all previous years we either lived with my parents, or my brother). I didn't get a tree until a week before Christmas, I bought it on the cheap from a tree lot near our house, dragged it home and propped it in the corner....without a tree stand. I think I had it resting in a bucket or something equally ridiculous. I have no excuse for my behavior, other than I was a single mom, and blowing $40 bucks on a tree, then a stand, then lights and ornaments (no, my sad little tree didn't have these either) just seemed like too much. But we still had a tree to put those presents under, darn it, and Christmas was complete. The next year was our first year with Matthew, and I was bound and determined never to repeat the previous years experiance. So I convinced Matthew (who would have been a happy tree lot shopper) that we needed to go cut down our tree. We went to a "popular" place called Sleigh bells, which I recommend only if you love being sardined in among huge crowds of people, and lugging your (ideally) 9 month pregnant butt up very sleep slopes to look for the perfect tree. We gave up halfway through, and lugged home some pitiful little tree. I was taller than this tree for goodness sake. I have never been a fan of small tabletop type trees...if you are going to get a tree at all, it better be scraping the ceiling. Extra points if you have to cut off part of the top to make the star fit. The bigger and taller, the better. I have no pictures of that tree, which is just as well because the lighting in our cave was horrible. So I will start you with our family tradition of tree hunting in:
2006:
Remember how I said bigger was better? I was rooting for the tree in the back. The boys quickly vetoed me:
Rowan and I searching for the perfect tree:
We found it!
After the boys cut the tree down, we headed to the gift shop/barn. This year, happy not to repeat the last years fiasco at Sleigh bells, we went to Haggs Tree Farm. This is the same farm that I went to growing up (see story above) and it hasn't changed a bit! I love this place, they have a little bit of everything, lots of space for the kids to run, animals to pet and feed, ornaments to buy, and huge fires to warm up at. Here is Killian feeding the goats (remember these guys, you will see them again):
Another tradition that started that year was Killian cutting the baling strings from the tree:
And putting the star on top:
Yes, I look like a total dorkus in this picture but I had to post it because look how young Killian is in it!! Its crazy how fast he is growing up, and physically at least, he is no longer my little guy.
You didn't forget that this was Rowans first Christmas did you? She thought the whole tree in the living room thing was pretty neat:
That takes us to...
2007:
Something happened with Haggs this year, I think they only had pre-cut trees, so we were forced to find somewhere else to hunt for our tree. We found a place near Hillsboro and again set out in search of the perfect tree. We found the perfect dog (aside from the drooling, I would totally love a St. Bernard):
But we didn't end up finding the perfect tree. Oh, we found a tree alright. Here it is in all its pre-cut glory:
But a surprise was in store for us once we got that sucker cut down. It was heavy. No, not just heavy. It was humongously heavy. The darn thing was totally water logged, and must have weighed more than 3 regular Christmas trees. Seriously we were sweating by the time we rolled this thing to the baler. It took 2 guys and Matthew to even load it up on the baler, and that was a struggle. They were all amazed, and we were were wishing we could ditch the tree and slink off to find a new one. We were stuck though, so we paid for it, and lost 10 pounds each dragging it to the car. With Rowan on my back. In 3 feet of snow. Or something. We couldn't load it on the roof of the car, because it would surely have caved it in. Plus, we couldn't lift it that high. Did I mention how heavy this thing was? So, we stuffed what we could of the tree in the trunk, and drove home, laughing our butts off the whole way about our water logged luck.
Killian cut the strings:
Somehow I didn't get any pictures of him putting the star on, or decorating the tree. Not sure what happened there, but I did find this one of Christmas morning to share:
Better times were ahead for us though, because then came...
2008:
This year we made the trek back to our old standby, Haggs. We went on a Sunday morning, and it was completely dead. So dead that while we were searching the hill for our perfect tree, we had a worker sitting on his ATV at the bottom of the hill, practically begging us to need him. We found the perfect tree in no time at all, and worker man bounded up the hill to ask if he could take our picture for us. Hows that for service?
*Aimee...check out my hat!* :)
I am not really 2 feet taller than Matthew. I was just standing on the high side of the hill. Usually we cut our own tree down, but handy helper guy had a chainsaw that he was just itching to put into action, so we let him cut it down for us. Then he helped carry it to the road, called for someone to come get it and take it to the baler for us. We drove down there, and our tree was right behind us. They shook it, baled it and loaded and tied it on the car for us. It was by far the easiest tree getting experiance I have ever had (clearly much better than the year before)! That left us with lots of time to feed the goats:
Pick out our ornaments (we each get a new one every year) and sip some hot chocolate:
Once home, Matthew and I cut a good 8 inches off the trunk of the tree (our ceilings are so low in this house...sadly I am doomed to a life time of short trees) and hauled it inside where Killian was of course ready to snip:
We strung the lights and hung the ornaments:
And then Killian put up the star:
The final result is just beautiful, I love having a tree in the house. It smells so wonderful, and the lights look so pretty at night, all soft and glowing. Its one of my top favorite parts of Christmas time.
Its so neat to have our own traditions as a family, things that hopefully the kids will want to do with their families when they get older. Its neat seeing the kids grow up through the years too. Oh, speaking of growing up, SARAH - Check out this picture of your little Nevaeh that I found. They were both so small!!
The first Christmas we celebrated together as a family we still lived in a cave and our camera only used film. I know, depressing isn't it? But in 2006 we sped into the future and found ourselves in possession of a digital camera. Therefor my photographic history starts with our 2006 Christmas. But first, a bit of background...
Growing up we always went to a tree farm to cut down our tree. I remember running around in the mud, getting filthy while my Dad would settle himself on a tarp under our chosen tree, cursing at the stupid saw which was not cutting said stupid tree. Eventually he would get it cut down, and we would be back at the car, stripping off our wet jeans and shoes and socks, and changing into sweats and warm socks, just in time for a cup of hot chocolate from the thermos my mom always brought. I don't ever remember a time that we went to a tree lot to get a tree, so its always been really important to me that my kids have this same memory of Christmas tree hunting. I will admit, I did cheat Killian's 4th Christmas, our first one in our very own apartment (all previous years we either lived with my parents, or my brother). I didn't get a tree until a week before Christmas, I bought it on the cheap from a tree lot near our house, dragged it home and propped it in the corner....without a tree stand. I think I had it resting in a bucket or something equally ridiculous. I have no excuse for my behavior, other than I was a single mom, and blowing $40 bucks on a tree, then a stand, then lights and ornaments (no, my sad little tree didn't have these either) just seemed like too much. But we still had a tree to put those presents under, darn it, and Christmas was complete. The next year was our first year with Matthew, and I was bound and determined never to repeat the previous years experiance. So I convinced Matthew (who would have been a happy tree lot shopper) that we needed to go cut down our tree. We went to a "popular" place called Sleigh bells, which I recommend only if you love being sardined in among huge crowds of people, and lugging your (ideally) 9 month pregnant butt up very sleep slopes to look for the perfect tree. We gave up halfway through, and lugged home some pitiful little tree. I was taller than this tree for goodness sake. I have never been a fan of small tabletop type trees...if you are going to get a tree at all, it better be scraping the ceiling. Extra points if you have to cut off part of the top to make the star fit. The bigger and taller, the better. I have no pictures of that tree, which is just as well because the lighting in our cave was horrible. So I will start you with our family tradition of tree hunting in:
2006:
Remember how I said bigger was better? I was rooting for the tree in the back. The boys quickly vetoed me:
Rowan and I searching for the perfect tree:
We found it!
After the boys cut the tree down, we headed to the gift shop/barn. This year, happy not to repeat the last years fiasco at Sleigh bells, we went to Haggs Tree Farm. This is the same farm that I went to growing up (see story above) and it hasn't changed a bit! I love this place, they have a little bit of everything, lots of space for the kids to run, animals to pet and feed, ornaments to buy, and huge fires to warm up at. Here is Killian feeding the goats (remember these guys, you will see them again):
Another tradition that started that year was Killian cutting the baling strings from the tree:
And putting the star on top:
Yes, I look like a total dorkus in this picture but I had to post it because look how young Killian is in it!! Its crazy how fast he is growing up, and physically at least, he is no longer my little guy.
You didn't forget that this was Rowans first Christmas did you? She thought the whole tree in the living room thing was pretty neat:
That takes us to...
2007:
Something happened with Haggs this year, I think they only had pre-cut trees, so we were forced to find somewhere else to hunt for our tree. We found a place near Hillsboro and again set out in search of the perfect tree. We found the perfect dog (aside from the drooling, I would totally love a St. Bernard):
But we didn't end up finding the perfect tree. Oh, we found a tree alright. Here it is in all its pre-cut glory:
But a surprise was in store for us once we got that sucker cut down. It was heavy. No, not just heavy. It was humongously heavy. The darn thing was totally water logged, and must have weighed more than 3 regular Christmas trees. Seriously we were sweating by the time we rolled this thing to the baler. It took 2 guys and Matthew to even load it up on the baler, and that was a struggle. They were all amazed, and we were were wishing we could ditch the tree and slink off to find a new one. We were stuck though, so we paid for it, and lost 10 pounds each dragging it to the car. With Rowan on my back. In 3 feet of snow. Or something. We couldn't load it on the roof of the car, because it would surely have caved it in. Plus, we couldn't lift it that high. Did I mention how heavy this thing was? So, we stuffed what we could of the tree in the trunk, and drove home, laughing our butts off the whole way about our water logged luck.
Killian cut the strings:
Somehow I didn't get any pictures of him putting the star on, or decorating the tree. Not sure what happened there, but I did find this one of Christmas morning to share:
Better times were ahead for us though, because then came...
2008:
This year we made the trek back to our old standby, Haggs. We went on a Sunday morning, and it was completely dead. So dead that while we were searching the hill for our perfect tree, we had a worker sitting on his ATV at the bottom of the hill, practically begging us to need him. We found the perfect tree in no time at all, and worker man bounded up the hill to ask if he could take our picture for us. Hows that for service?
*Aimee...check out my hat!* :)
I am not really 2 feet taller than Matthew. I was just standing on the high side of the hill. Usually we cut our own tree down, but handy helper guy had a chainsaw that he was just itching to put into action, so we let him cut it down for us. Then he helped carry it to the road, called for someone to come get it and take it to the baler for us. We drove down there, and our tree was right behind us. They shook it, baled it and loaded and tied it on the car for us. It was by far the easiest tree getting experiance I have ever had (clearly much better than the year before)! That left us with lots of time to feed the goats:
Pick out our ornaments (we each get a new one every year) and sip some hot chocolate:
Once home, Matthew and I cut a good 8 inches off the trunk of the tree (our ceilings are so low in this house...sadly I am doomed to a life time of short trees) and hauled it inside where Killian was of course ready to snip:
We strung the lights and hung the ornaments:
And then Killian put up the star:
The final result is just beautiful, I love having a tree in the house. It smells so wonderful, and the lights look so pretty at night, all soft and glowing. Its one of my top favorite parts of Christmas time.
Its so neat to have our own traditions as a family, things that hopefully the kids will want to do with their families when they get older. Its neat seeing the kids grow up through the years too. Oh, speaking of growing up, SARAH - Check out this picture of your little Nevaeh that I found. They were both so small!!
