Christmas Tree Day!! Hooray!

Christmas Tree Day! Hooray!
Originally uploaded by rhondamt

Sunday afternoon we headed a few blocks from home to a tree lot. Jeff and I finally resolved the Great Xmas Tree Debate. We always love the idea of driving into the Santa Cruz mountains to cut a tree. In fact, many years we have done this. We bundle up, bring hot cocoa, ignore the car queasiness and head up the curvy roads to the tree farms. It always feels like Christmas when we're hiking around looking for the perfect tree. I think Jeff feels very lumberjack manly sawing the tree down while we all cheer him on. However, our FAVORITE type of tree is the Noble Fir. We both just absolutely love a perfect Noble Fir. Oh, the way the ornaments hang between the boughs...it really is such a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, Noble Firs do not grow in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They come from Oregon. Each year, we AGONIZE (I might be exaggerating just a bit) about whether to cut a tree, a sub-par tree in our opinion, or schlep to a lot and just pick one out. Going to the lot is so much easier, but feels much less authentic somehow. Each year we go back and forth. This year we were both hankering for a Noble more than we were hankering for a mountain adventure. Thus to the tree lot it was. It was even walking distance from our house so we saved gas. It's hard to beat an environmentally friendly, convenient Noble Fir tree. The kids seemed to have just as much fun running around the lot as they have running around in the mountains (almost).

And now we have a gorgeous tree...the best tree we've ever had. Of course we say that every year, but this year, I think it might be true.