Ohh, the memories

When I was growing up I distinctly remember one Christmas when we decided to walk the block and a half to the Christmas tree lot and carry our tree back. It was me, my two sisters, my step-dad and my mom. It was a fun thought, since we are pure city girls, to walk to get our tree even though we didn't cut it ourselves and carry it back in the snow! Well about 20 feet after carrying our carefully picked tree it started going down hill. The comedy of watching three girls and a man carry a Christmas tree down a semi-busy street had to be hilarious. As we started walking back reality set in and I realized this is embarrassing. As always things started getting awkward, I started getting giggly which I am sure encouraged my sisters to start too. Then the man who was trying to keep us together...oh the memory. (I had a similar experience with my dear hubby that caused 10 minutes of speechlessness and a look of bewilderment.) I am sure it wasn't quite like this but in a nutshell good idea at first, not so good halfway home!

Anyways now to Saturday. We live +/- 1/2 mile from a Christmas tree lot. We decided we would try that one this year. We were trying to figure out how we could get our Christmas tree back and all 5 kids with one vehicle that does not happen to be a truck. So I said well...we could walk. We thought how we could get the tree back and it came to me. We have this fabulous all-terrain wagon that screams "I can carry a Christmas tree". Jeremy was sold. Off we went. I pushed the stroller with Lauren inside. The Haylie and Hannah rode in the wagon, Logan walked along side Jeremy and Miranda limped alongside me. It was fun.

So we got to the lot. We received the standard "are these all yours?" and "wow." Then we found the perfect tree. The sales man, I think his name was Chris (isn't every body's?), chuckled to himself when we said we were walking. We assured him we lived really close. We paid for the tree, they gave each of our kids a candy cane. We adjusted our children: Logan and Miranda walked (she was no longer limping amazing how Christmas can heal all ailments!). Haylie and Hannah jumped on to the stroller with Lauren and Jeremy got the tree. We headed home.

We stopped about 4 times to help Jeremy adjust. The tree was about a foot short to hold it comfortably so he had to reach over his shoulder and grab the tippy top of the tree. He was just far enough away from the wagon that it barely missed his foot as he walked. He said he used muscles that are typically ignored. Also note he helped with a move that day too. He was still smiling as we approached our street. We, I mean he, safely got our tree home with only two minor broken branches.

Then the fun began. "Can we decorate the tree?" "No, we need to put the lights and tinsel on" "Is it on yet?" while looking at the tree!, "why isn't it on yet?" We then went and put the stuff out front. It took us a lot longer to get things done, so the kids each put on three ornaments and headed to bed. Jeremy and I finished decorating and then we hit the sack.

At about midnight we heard a crash. It is becoming a tradition that our tree falls over! UGH! So we had to clean up the mess and re-straighten the tree, and re-tighten all EIGHT screws. About 20 ornaments fell off the tree, two broke in 3 or four places. One is missing two pieces and our Christmas tree star broke into a few pieces. Thank heavens for super glue. The star still needs some attention. So how often do you get to decorate you tree twice? In our home more often then we would like! As we were both exhausted trying to figure out if we can put Logan's Toy Story ornament back together and who was going to tell him if need be, it was comical but almost worthy of tears. These are costly ornaments. It came to us separately that as beautiful as the tree is all decorated, our house decorated inside and out, the music and lights, etc. It really isn't what the season is about. We have so much to be grateful for. This is all just cherries on top. But wow what a fun story to share!