MacKay and I both grew up with artificial trees during Christmas time. My mom puts up about five different themed trees in our house. I loved how she decorated them, but always wanted a real tree. From the smell that just reminds you of Christmas, to the fun of picking it out year after year, I yearned for the experience.
When MacKay and I got married, we followed suit from our parents. We bought the artificial tree for our house in Florida and decorated it. Once the holiday was over, we took everything down and packed the tree up in our attic. When we moved we gave everything to my parents (to add to their collection 😉 ) because we had absolutely no room for storage in our apartment.
I remember the first year that we bought a real Christmas tree. It was Harlan’s first Christmas and we bought a tiny tree to go in the tiny apartment MacKay was living in at the time. New York City has Christmas trees for sale on nearly every corner and it was so much fun to bundle up and pick out one of our own.
The tradition continued year after year and although we now have the room in our house to store an artficial tree, we are going to stick to getting the real thing. Living in the burbs is quite different and we happen to be surrounded my tree farms that gives you a choice of so many variety of Christmas trees and even the option to cut down your own.
On Sunday we ventured into town to visit Santa before heading out to buy our tree. We’ve had a lot of conversations about Santa lately and I was very curious to see how the kids would react. Nearly every year, Harlan has been terrified and Avery has just been very unsure of the whole thing. When we walked in, Harlan sat right up on his lap ready to spill her wish list, while Macks just stared.
Avery, however, freaked out. She didn’t want to go near him at all and started having a fit. Rather than forcing her to sit on his lap, we compromised and she ended up holding Harlan’s hand for one photo.
This was the best we got and I think for our first round, it was pretty good!
Shortly after visiting Santa, we made our way to a nearby tree farm to pick out a tree. I was so giddy with excitement because I’d always dreamed of picking out a tree tying it to the top of the car. We’d always pay the guy on the corner to deliver it to our apartment, but now we had the chance to get the full experience.
The farm was packed with fellow tree-buyers, but there was so much to do and see on the farm that it didn’t seem to matter.
Despite all of the people, the process went smoothly. We opted for a blue spruce and once we picked out our tree, we brought it for a quick trimming and the girls watched as it went through the machine to wrap it up for the journey home!
This was the moment that I’ve been waiting for my entire life. It’s not much, but this made me so incredibly happy. And the tree looks so tiny compared to the car, but it was nearly 8 ft tall!
It has yet to be decorated because MacKay has been out of town this week and becuase it’s so much bigger than all of our other trees, I ran out of lights. But even half lit up and un-decorated, it’s just right. Avery asks to turn on the lights the second she walks in the door.
Who knew that something as simple as a tree could bring joy and happniess into our home?
