Our Christmas Tree

Since Thanksgiving was so late this year, it means that the "Christmas Season" has been shortened.  Bummer.  

We needed to go ahead and get our Christmas Tree ASAP so we could enjoy it for as long as possible!  We try and get our tree from a local farm that also supports our boy scout troop.  It is truly win-win.  We have had a live tree since Brighton was two, and I hope we continue to do so.  Having a fake tree, just isn't the same :)

We headed to the tree lot and posed for pictures in the various sleighs.  There was hardly any complaining at all about putting on Christmas sweaters!  All mommy had to say was those that were wearing sweaters got a candy cane that they hand out at the lot, and those that weren't didn't.  

Easy enough!

After looking around at every possible tree, and trying to find one in our budget, we settled on this one.  The big boys had picked out a 10-12 footer, but that wouldn't fit in our home where we normally place it.  Maybe another year, boys!

Just for picture sake, I had Derek snap one of the tree on top of the van.

When we got home, we managed to get the tree inside and situated in the stand.  That was about all the fun we could handle for one day, so we left the garland and lights for the next day.

Derek and I differ slightly on how to decorate the tree, I like my beaded garland, and he does not.  He doesn't like it because the boys LOVE to play with it and that can drive you crazy sometimes, but I love the memories from each year about how excited the boys get over the strands of red beads.  They are always a favorite with the boys and this year was no exception.  

It was finally Maverick's year to place the star on the tree!  He was so excited!!

Love this picture of Derek with Maverick, so cute!

Now, it was time for the lights.  We put one strand of colored and one strand of white.  Chandler and Brighton helped with some assistance from Mom and Dad.  Maverick did some here and there, but was done with the picture taking at this point.

It was four days later before we tackled getting the ornaments up.  Now the tree is decorated and looks great!