Annual Christmas Tree Hunting!

In my family when we were growing up we had the family tradition of going up to the mountains, hiking through the snow (if there was any) and searching for the perfect Charlie Brown tree to cut down. It was always so much fun and something we looked forward to. I only remember buying a tree off a lot once when we were in Wisconsin, but I am pretty sure we always found a place where we could cut down our own Christmas tree. Well, since Craig and I have been married, this has also been our tradition. When we lived in Colorado, we would go up to the mountains with my family and we would spend the morning searching out the perfect tree, then we would have a picnic lunch and hot chocolate. It was so much fun. Well, now that we are in North Carolina, we found a nice tree farm about 10 minutes from our house. Not quite the same as hiking up the mountain with tons of snow, but not nearly as hard, or cold. Plus, the trees are hand pruned, have more than 15 branches, and only cost $15.00. Yep, so this is where we have gone the last 3 years that we have been here for Christmas.

Here is Peyton looking for a tree. He seemed confused as he only has found 2 sticks so far.

Here is our tree. I forgot to get a picture of it before Craig almost had it cut down. Peyton was helping, of course.

Timber. Now the tree is "broken" as Peyton says.

Us with our tree.

Peyton was helping carry the tree, but decided it was too heavy.

Every year I see these strange shrub-like trees that I wonder if people actually cut down as Christmas trees, and we actually saw a family cutting one this year. Anyone know what it is? Sarah, do you know?

We quickly got our tree decorated and have as many ornaments on here as Peyton would allow. I would put them on and he would take them off. Ignore the ribbons on top of my curtain rod, those are for the tree and I forgot to pull them down before taking this picture.

Peyton loves that we have a tree in our house.

An attempted family portrait.