Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Hello Friends!

Don't you just looooooove Christmas? I got excited this year and pulled the Christmas stuff out of storage the week after Thanksgiving! And that is a major accomplishment for me! You heard about our tree fiasco... and if you didn't, feel free to read the previous post. :)

Like I said, I got everything out and the lights hung and the (fake) tree in the house and got some neighbor gifts together and then I hit a SLUMP... for about a week. We had a rough experience and I decided I was already officially over Christmas and that it was too hard to be in the Christmas spirit when I had so much shopping to do, so much decorating to finish, and it was just all too much work. Bah Humbug. That was me.

Thankfully, my husband let me be grumpy for a few days and we moved on. We finally got that blasted tree decorated :). I made tags for the neighbor gifts (they are coming soon... promise!). We started playing Christmas music, doing some shopping (I LOVE Christmas shopping!), and I even made sugar cookies yesterday! With Taylor's help, of course. We had lots of fun. I finished a blanket I was sewing for a little Angel Tree boy. And I started working on some more Christmas sewing that needs to be done... in a week?! AAAH!

I think this year more than ever I have been thinking what Christmas is REALLY about. Really about Jesus Christ. The fact that because of Him, families can be together forever. How thankful I am for that gift. Best Christmas gift... EVER. I have felt an increase in love from Heavenly Father these last few weeks and a feeling of peace and tranquility and just the "gut feeling" that everything is going to be okay.

I feel like we have had an outpouring of blessings that we really don't deserve but that I am so grateful for. I feel like I have aged about 10 years in the last few weeks, and I can't say that it's all bad. I feel a deeper sense of maturity or something... like my spirit grew older, but wiser at the same time. Have you ever had that experience? Or do you just think I'm SUPER crazy now? :)

I hope you are all able to enjoy this Christmas season and spend time with family and friends. We are all so blessed.

Erika

The Year of the Fake Tree

We cut down our Christmas tree every year. This year was no different... in the beginning. Saturday afternoon we went for a little drive up the canyon to find the perfect tree. We weren't able to get very far until the snow was so deep we didn't dare go any further. As Adam was backing the truck up I said, "Oh look.... that tree looks good!"So Adam and Neto got out of the truck and started climbing up the mountain to look at the tree. Taylor was sleeping in the truck so I stayed on the road and directed them on where to go. I am very good at this job by the way. :)

Surprisingly, once they got to the tree, Adam said it looked good from up there too! If you get Christmas trees yourself, you know that one side of the tree usually looks good, then the other side is bare, or it is really TWO trees posing as one tree or something and then you have to keep hunting for the perfect, or at least not-so-Charlie-Brownish tree that you really want. So when Adam said the tree looked good from the road AND the hill, I was shocked. I mean, I didn't even get snow on my boots. I didn't even have to decide between tree  x and y. The tree was good. GOAL.

The boys cut the tree down while I watched them... from the snow-packed road. Literally, we were up there for 20 minutes. Literally. This never happens. We were congratulating ourselves on our awesome find, how this was probably one of our best trees ever, and we loaded it up and took it home.

As is our custom, I held the tree in place and Adam adjusted the screws on the tree stand so it would stand exactly where I wanted it. But this year, we couldn't get the *#*(@# thing to stand! No matter what we did, the tree would lean, then fall over. Seriously. We do this EVERY YEAR. We have never had this problem. After about 30 minutes and minimal swearing by the man of the house, we decided the tree wouldn't stand because one of the eye bolts on the tree stand was bent and wouldn't support the tree. So Adam went and got a replacement bolt....meanwhile, the tree fell down AGAIN.

When he got home, we replaced the eyebolt, and I volunteered to get under the tree and adjust the stand, knowing Adam was out of patience and probably doing something wrong....right? Why else wouldn't it work? After another 20 minutes and the same results, Adam left to go "snowblow something" (which ended up taking an hour, by the way) and I stayed in with the dang tree trying to get it to work. I finally gave up on having it stand up straight and just focused on having it stay "up." Leaning against the wall. Because I'm classy like that.

And when I thought I had it, I started putting lights on the top. The tree and stand fell over again. After some quiet swearing from the woman of the house (hey... Taylor was in there with me) I went all out. I got duct tape because it fixes everything, and wrapped it around the trunk. Tree still fell. So I wrapped a towel around the trunk and inside the stand for support and to add thickness to the trunk. Tree still fell.

I yanked the lights off the tree, took the stand off the tree, threw open the front door and CHUCKED the tree stand out the front door into a snowdrift, followed 30 seconds later by that DAMNED #$(*&@#$(*&$ tree!

And we went and bought an artificial tree. Prelit. For $40.00. And I don't even feel that bad about it.And, to show you just how traumatic yesterday was on the whole family, as we were assembling our new little fakie, Taylor kept saying, "Tree, don't fall down!" and the highlight of my whole day: She got on the couch, looked out the window at the snowbank and said, "STUPID TREE!". I'm glad that's all she said. :)

No worries, though. Adam and I have decided to put our mountain tree to good use. We are going to decorate it with lights and stick it in the snowbank by our front door. Because we can. Because we live in Wyoming. And because we think it's funny. And I secretly hope that the tree gives off some scared/regretful pheromones for all of it's little evergreen buddies and they decide that NO MATTER WHAT, they will stand in that tree stand next year and enjoy it! Hope your tree-getting is better than ours this year!

Merry Christmas!