Christmas Season 2008

Sorry for that lapse into lunacy (see post below), I am back and ready to be more normal. (unless you count this weekends book club party where I will be dressing up like a vampire in honor our chosen book) I know its not terribly nice to laugh at people who are trying to be deep, passionate and philosophical... but I really couldn't help it.

This is the part of the post where I would insert lots of cute pictures of our family cutting down our Christmas tree. Unfortunately, I pulled the camera out of its case at the tree farm and the battery was completely dead. Which is probably a good thing because it was POURING rain and having a camera to snap thousands of pictures would have just delayed us and made the kids even wetter.

If only I had checked the camera the day before when we made our first attempt at getting a tree. That day we caved as rain thundered down on our car and made the difficult decision to turn back despite weeks (hours?) of preparation for the journey.

The silver lining of this very rainy cloud was that 1) we found an awesome tree farm finally -Alpine Meadows and 2) we saved lots of money on our tree this year.

Its so funny what makes you love a tree farm. I couldn't put my finger on what I disliked about ones we'd been to previously until we visited Alpine Meadows. It was a gorgeous setting, but most importantly (apparently) it had a cute weathered wood barn and a weathered wood shed to go into to purchase your tree.

And finally it struck me - I hate those big huge metal outbuildings that were at all the other places we have gone. Growing up, our tree farm of choice just had a small shack to buy your tree. Every place we've gone lately has had huge metal sheds everywhere and despite the lights dangled from them enticingly, I find them incredibly ugly and unquaint. So if you prefer weathered wood to corrugated metal, I suggest you try Alpine Meadows.

When we arrived, we also discovered that in addition to our camera being dead and the rain pouring down, the place also only accepted cash. I had a meager supply in my wallet, enough for a douglas, but not a grand fir. So we went with the douglas and also had our 8 foot tree measured at 5 feet because the guy thought we were broke and said he'd give us a deal when he saw us counting our pennies. He was also probably impressed that we dragged our kids out in the pouring rain. So our tree cost less than $20 and I love it just as much as those fancy grand firs.

Then the decorating. (this is where I'd have more cute pictures if I hadn't dropped our camera and broken the flash a couple months ago)

We had a full house for our tree decorating party, the four of us, plus THREE Comcast cable installers! It was so merry and joyous to have them there peppering kyle with technical questions as he helped Annika hang breakable ornaments. And so we officially ended nearly 4 years of being tv free. (except for 3 canadian channels we got on our antenna. but we never watched those.)

Annika loved decorating the tree and was especially smitten with her "baby's first christmas" ornament that is a small white stuffed teddy bear - just like the one in her crib she's attached to.

Saben liked to hang breakable things. I guess mom hovering and saying things like "don't you dare drop that glass ball, it will shatter and send shards right into your eyeball and you'll never see anything again!" really got his adrenaline pumping.

It has been such incredible fun this year, (despite the few setbacks and some sarcasm) to celebrate the holidays with Saben. He has apparently reached the perfect holiday age and is ecstatic about everything we do - tree cutting, hanging lights, decorating, elf hunting....And buys anything I tell him about Santa still.

I love it all.