the expedition.

in recent years, we’ve gone on our tree hunting expedition at some point during thanksgiving weekend.  the actual day we get it done however, largely depends on whichever day phil is off work.  we like to get it early so we can get it decorated and get a bit of a headstart on enjoying it (read: get our money’s worth out of it) for the five weeks until new year’s day.  or the week after.  cuz it takes about that long for me to feel any sort of distance between pulling the ornaments and decorations out and putting everything away again.  ok, maybe that makes sense only to me.

in any case, this year we were all set to get our tree last saturday.  right away, we ruled out the idea of driving out to a tree farm and cutting down our own tree.  one, because living in the la metro area means any tree farms would be quite a distance away, and two, because phil’s not so keen on the idea of doing manual labor on one of his rare days off.  so this year, we settled on the idea of going to a tree lot to let the kids run around for a bit while we picked out a tree.

nice and simple, right?

wrong.  so very, very wrong.  while the sign proclaimed the lot was OPEN, they didn’t actually appear to be ready quite yet.

cuz um, what’s a giant jack ‘o lantern and haystacks got to do with christmas trees?

so we drove around some more while trying to find a nearby tree lot on the iphone and only kept finding empty lots with no trees to be found anywhere.  really?  did no one get the message that some families like to get their tree while it’s still november?  the kids were getting antsy.  we had been driving around for more than an hour.  and they were getting hungry.  it was a couple hours past lunchtime.

we decided to make a pit stop at the grove to eat and regroup.

the troops needed the sustenance.

and not a moment too soon.

once everyone was recharged, we headed back out on the expedition.  and ultimately we got our mission accomplished.  at home depot.  not exactly the scene of the warm, fuzzy memories i was hoping for, but we got the job done.

after phil and i got the tree secured to the top of our van, he gave an end of twine to each of the kids and told them to hold on tight or else our tree would fall off.  they really believed they were holding that tree in place and held on tight all the way home.

we decided to let the girls skip their afternoon nap that day in favor of letting everyone decorate the tree together.  allie got the daddy and daughter bear ornament to hang up first.

and this year, she was able to do it all by herself.

this one still needed help hanging the ornaments.  she was in charge of hanging all the unbreakable ones.

she didn’t notice, though.

mikey and daddy managed to get the star put in place using the same method they’ve used since mikey was three.

and so this year, most of the ornaments are hung on the bottom third of the tree and clumped to the right side.  but i think it’s perfect that way.  🙂

early merry christmas from our crazy crew!