When is a Christmas Tree, Not a Christmas Tree?

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the day that we usually go out and get our Christmas Tree. It is a budding tradition that I started a few years ago when I realized that traveling hours with many young children was not the best idea in December. When I decided that I was staying home with the kids, I also realized that I needed a Christmas Tree. The first year I went out, I headed out with a couple of tree farm leads, that all turned out to be dead ends with not a nice tree in sight.

After hours of driving around in circles and getting nowhere, I sat at a crossroads at the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains on the Blue Ridge Parkway wondering what to do next. I was feeling defeated, but was determined to actually find a tree farm that had trees. Suddenly, in the distance, I saw a car driving ever so carefully with a beautiful tree tied to the top of their car! Somehow in my excitement, I managed to to get my window down and flail my arms around enough to get them to stop so that we could ask where they got their tree. After learning all I had to do was turn left and drive for a while that we would find the best tree farm ever, we were on our way.

It really is the best tree farm ever. At least I think so, and so do the kids. We love going out and running around in between all of the trees, picking the perfect one. Pure Bliss.

Last year, we ended up having a snow storm the Saturday following Thanksgiving, so we put if off until the next weekend. I don’t remember all the details, but things got hectic and I think we were having trouble finding time to actually get the tree. What ever day it was, we were on our way out the door when our neighbor knocked on our door and asked if we wanted her old artificial tree. Now as much as we wanted to head up to the mountain, we took that artificial tree and ran with it. We still drank warm cider and had a great time decorating the tree.

This year is not looking so good to go out and get a real tree either, so Iam using our backup artificial tree again.

Last year after Christmas, the weekends were packed with working on the addition and before we knew it it was February and we had our Valentines Day Tree and then before we knew it, we had an Easter Tree. Then I remembered that I posted photos of our Valentines Day Tree and Easter Tree decorations that the kids made. If you have ever wondered what Valentines Day and Easter trees look like, here they are Fun Friday Photos, Goodbye Valentines Day Tree, Hello…

I didn’t end up taking the Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter Tree down until April.

I was hoping to get the tree completely decorated today, but we only managed to get the tree down out of the attic, and put the tree together. All the boxes of decorations are down out of the attic too. We are going to finish decorating the tree tomorrow afternoon.

There will not be a Valentine’s Day or Easter tree next year. That is the plan, and I am sticking too it.