The Festivities Begin

With blinding speed, we somehow managed to pick out, buy and decorate our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving Day. This, of course, was driven by the tight schedule and availability of my kids. My schedule, if you can even call it that, is pretty much non existent. But the kids - like it or not, they all had places they needed to get to so Thanksgiving Day was going to be the only time we would all be together until Christmas.

So, after repeatedly harassing the local tree farm, we were given a half hour window for when someone would be around and if we wanted to roll the dice, we could drive down and get a tree - which is exactly what we wanted to do.

With a few exceptions, we normally like to wander the farm and pick out what we consider to be the perfect tree (or, as close as we can get to it with what’s available), cut it down, and then haul it back home.

This year, there was no time for this - which was just fine. The temperature was so bitter that even given the opportunity, wandering through a tree covered field in the frigid cold was not high up on anyone’s list.

So, we bombed down to the tree farm, picked out a pre-cut tree, threw it on the roof of the car, drove back and then set it in the tree stand - all in record time. Start to finish, it was less than half an hour. Add a couple of hours to put on the lights and decorate it, and presto! - all ready for Christmas! (Well, except for buying presents, wrapping them, decorating the house with the other decorations (if we feel like it), etc, etc - you get the idea.)

In the end, it all worked out fine.

Later in the day, Helaina and Jake took off for their respective visits and obligations, and the following day, Rachael headed back to The Big City - leaving nothing but the settling dust and me and a Christmas tree, waiting to be together again on Christmas.