Since there are several tree farms literally within FIVE minutes of our house we gleefully packed up the kids in the truck and drove down our main road to get our tree!
Here I am putting on my happy face for the hunt. OK, so I am faking it a little.Next, husband Mike, armed with a hand saw, a camera, and his blackberry was in charge of the gadgets. As soon as we entered the truck, he found an immediate need to take his self portrait. With arms extended awkwardly he captured this beautiful moment in time.
He's AWESOME with the camera.
Poor baby Ella in the back seat is thinking, "Dada, what are you doing with the camera all funny like that?? You're supposed to be taking pictures of me. Maybe I need to hit you with this here stick."
This is sooo much better here, a huge improvement honey. I think we can count every one of your beard hairs now. 
As we arrived at the location where we thought we could execute a tree by lethal sawing there was a strange and unexpected sign on the entry gate. What could this possibly be???
Total bummer. This did not bode well for the hunt. But after a quick reevaluation of their tree stock as pictured below...
Maybe they needed to be closed for a good reason. We would have brought home the Xmas shrub or a turbo tree... It would have been a tough decision to pick the ugliest tree from the mangy assortment presented on their lot, but we were assured to have the worst looking tree in the neighborhood regardless of our choice.
We drove down the road to the next promising spot only to greeted by another welcoming sign... At this point I am thinking we are totally doomed this year. We're going to have go to Home Dump, oops, I mean Home Depot. But...
As we were taking these lovely documentary photographs the lady teaching a riding lesson in the arena started yelling at us. "Why are you taking pictures???" in a not so friendly voice. Uh-oh! We're in trouble now.We yell back at her our situation with the previous tree farm being closed and that we were good photodocumentarians and the like. THEN she says, "We'll sell you a tree. Come in." Easy as that! What luck. And I though we were in for a real ass chewing with some nasty language. The Christmas spirit was following us.
So we parked on the side of the road and started our trek into their lot of pretty trees. They had lots of nice trees to choose from so I was wondering why they were closed so early.
Up and down the hill we went looking for just the right one.
Then, after hunting through the thicket for about 10 minutes we found the most ideal and perfect tree to assassinate and bring home as a trophy. We settled on this one which the kids helped pick out. (Translation: I picked it out)
After the quick hop home, we gave the camera to our son Wyatt so that he could hone his photography skills at an early age. It seems he is about as good as taking pictures as the old man... First we get a nice shot of Mike's ass.Then because Wyatt can't help himself he got a picture of Ella peeing...potty humor rules at my house.
But finally, we brought the little beauty in side to decorate.
Wyatt helped me with hanging ornaments. It was his novel idea to spear a smoked almond with a ornament hanger and place it delicately on the beaded garland. "A can a week, that's all we ask." Blue Diamond Almonds is loving us right now.
Then the almond, finding life as an ornament a total waste, fell into Wyatt's mouth by itself.
And finally the finished product. A decked out tree squeezed in between the table and the couch. Note the zone of "no ornamentation" up to three feet, a Christmas essential with toddlers who want to suck on strange shiny objects...
And my favorite new ornament "The gingerbread pony."One more Christmas ritual is complete and the count down is really underway now. I can almost hear Santa rounding up the reindeer for their party on the 25th!
