We didn’t waste any time making the transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I’ve always been one to respect the turkey, but as of 8:00 a.m. on Black Friday, we were off and running to Christmas-ify the house.
The main driver of this activity was the fact that it was 60 degrees outside, and that is basically unheard of for November in these parts. If we had to be outside putting up lights on the house, we wanted to be doing it without frozen fingers. ‘Nuf said.
We started with a morning run to a nearby Walmart to get supplies. Since we had never had an exterior to decorate when we lived in the condo, we were lacking a lot of the basics. After we loaded our cart with an ungodly amount of boxes of lights, we were on our way. Once home, we put Nora down for a nap and got working. It was seriously beautiful outside.
Nora blessed us by taking a really long nap, so we were able to get a lot done. Once she was up, we drove out to a local tree farm to meet up with my brother, Tyler, and sister-in-law, Marie. This is our first year getting a real tree (never bothered to do it in the condo) so we were excited.
I wore Nora in the Ergo for the hunt. First, Marie and I plotted out our route using the map. :)
Then, we were on our way.
Initially, we all thought we wanted blue spruces, but once we checked them out up close and personal, we realized that they have REALLY sharp and prickly needles. With a little one in the house, we decided against that.
After a little more hunting and exploring the different varieties, we found our winners. Coincidentally, they were right next to each other!
Tyler cut theirs down first…
…and then Michael took care of ours.
We’re used to freezing our asses off during Christmas tree hunting, so to do this so comfortably was a real treat. :)
After hauling the trees back to the cashier, getting them trimmed and bailed, we loaded them onto our cars and headed back for a few more photos ops.
First, Nora was happy to sit with Santa in his sleigh.
“Not so fast, Santa. I’m not done telling you what I want for Christmas.”
I don’t know what it means when she does this with her hands, but I absolutely love it.
Then it was time to haul our tree home, have some dinner, and get Nora into bed.
Once Nora was down for the night, we finished putting up the lights in our windows, and brought our tree inside.
Like my candy cane pajama pants? Festive.
Finally, it was complete. We promptly collapsed on the couch to watch Home Alone, but both passed out about 20-30 minutes into it.
I love Christmastime.
5 Responses to Smells Like [Christmas] Spirit
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About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
Love this post! Everything is beautiful and so festive…especially the photo putting the decorations on the tree with two beers on the mantle! Haha! Totally the same in our house! :) Merry Christmas!
love the two beers on the mantle ;)
hooray for a real tree!!
I will be redundant and say that I too, love the bottles of beer on the mantle – that oh-so-gorgeous corner of a mantle (I’m jealous can’t ya tell? I don’t have one) a great grown-up Christmas =) Everything looks wonderful =) I would love to see everything all lit up outside!
Just a funny note to an experience we had with a tree farm tree, on Christmas eve day we noticed teeny tiny little specks at the end of our beautiful tree branches jumping about…come to find out they were a nest of praying mantis babies we had apparently incubated with tree lights there were literally hundreds of them and they were cute but disgusting all at the same time. Since then, we have gone the fake tree route but will never forget our big outing to the tree farm, and it is said that they are good luck, we figured that was maybe an added blessing to our two little ones.. happy holidays, it is so nice to see other families sharing those precious times while the little ones are young! Just watch out for those real tree inhabitants :)!
[…] to a tree farm to pick out this year’s Christmas tree. The weather wasn’t PERFECT like last year (hey, that was an anomaly). It was slightly rainy and overcast, but the temperatures were decent, […]