Oh, Christmas Tree

On Saturday we made our annual family trek into the mountains of North Carolina to pick out our christmas tree. We make this trip every year, yet, somehow, every year we end up getting lost on our way to the tree place. And, every year, we end up going to a different tree place because we can't find the one we went to the year before! As I think back on it now, I can laugh about the whole experience. However, at the time, I wasn't laughing at all. When you're traveling with 4 kids+1 friend and two of those kids are babies, there is a finite amount of time that everyone can be confined in a vehicle and maintain their sanity. Needless to say, by the time we arrived at Grandfather's Christmas Tree Farm, I was already mostly over the experience.

Grandfather's tree farm made up for the drive by being a really neat place! They had an inside barn-type place with a few horses and a little hot cider/cocoa stand. We got to take a hayride up the side of the mountain to where we could choose a tree. It was cold and overcast but the upside of that was that it was snowing (a tiny bit) and the kids all thought that was so cool! We chose our tree and some guys with a chainsaw came and cut it down for us (we're not the Griswalds!), and then Santa drove it down to the where our car was parked. Instead of taking the hayride back down the mountain, the kids decided to run. We ended up having a really fun time! I made Keith save the location of this tree place in our navigation system, so hopefully next year our christmas tree search will start off on a better foot!