We got our Christmas Tree today…and we didn’t even get that wet! It sprinkled a bit on us, but we missed the worst of the rain. That is probably because we are bad people and skipped church…well…not totally. We took Elias to Sunday School, signed up for some Christmas basket items, made a donation to the church library, talked to a few people, and then left before the actual service.
As usual, we went to the Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our own tree. Elias was excited to get all bundled up, and was even more excited when we got there and he saw Ama and Baba had met us. Here he is looking for that perfect tree:
When we found our tree, we took a family shot in front of it, but Elias just wanted to use the camera himself, and we ended up pretty much covering up the entire tree so you can’t see it…but nonetheless…here we are:
Then Nathan went about cutting it down. After getting ours to the truck, we went back into the tree field to find Nana’s tree. We found that one without much trouble, and Nathan cut it down as well. He claims he will have sore triceps tomorrow…
Next we headed to Ama and Baba’s house to play, eat lunch, and help them set up their tall tree!
Later in the evening after dinner, Ama and Baba brought over our tree and helped us set it up. To my dismay, two bees flew out of it almost as soon as we had it standing! Luckily, my Dad was quick on the draw and we got them outside…but boy was I paranoid. I was having a very hard time controlling myself…I didn’t want to freak out in front of Elias. Actually, despite my attempts, he still noticed I was distressed and started saying things like “Mommy’s ok.” What a sweet boy.
My Dad and Nathan thoroughly checked the tree for more signs of bees. They had out head lamps and flashlights. Elias, of course, wanted in on that action. We got him a little flashlight, and he said he was “helping Daddy.” At first, he just shined the light on Nathan’s head which I got a picture of…it was hilarious:
We convinced Elias that he had to lay down and shine the light in the tree…this is what he did next:
Finally, we got him correctly oriented, and he shined the light into the tree just like his Daddy. Actually, he wanted to do that for most of the rest of the night. He kept asking Baba and Daddy to lay on their tummies and “play.” Then he kept saying “no bees, no spiders.” Of course I didn’t get a picture of any of that.
Our final glitch in the night was when we tried to put lights into our tree. We have used two strands of LED lights for the last two years. This year…one of them didn’t work. So unfortunately, only the bottom half of our tree is lit for now. Here is Elias “helping” with the lights.
Despite a bit of rain, bees, and broken lights, we had a wonderful time getting our tree today. What a great family tradition!