AnnDblog: Catch-up Christmas 2008

I had a bunch of pictures on my camera that I had never downloaded. So today I am going to try to get them blogged about. Any questions?

Yes, Ann, why is that you are blogging up a storm now? Well, that is a good question and I have two answers....Solitaire and Vacation. I will expound. I gave up Solitaire for Lent. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I have not played since March 1 at 10:22am. I have been tempted and unfortunately my hubby continues to play and he currently has over a 500 dollar pot of money that could easily blow through but I am staying true. I used to waste a lot of time on Solitaire, now when I sit down at the computer I blog. More importantly is the fact that I am on vacation from work. This is mid-term break so I took today off and will leave for a conference tomorrow that will last the rest of the week. So there you have it.

One group of pictures are from Christmas. We always get our tree from the pasture. Sometimes they are pretty sad looking. The great thing is that both of our families had the same tradition so neither of us has ever been spoiled by the perfect Christmas tree.

I have seen the perfect tree though and I may as well tell that story or I will forget to come back to it.

When I was still living at home, my family, as noted above, would just cut down a tree from the pasture. I don't really remember it being a family outing....I think maybe Dad or one of the boys would just get one sometime. They were cedar trees and usually had a side that needed to go against the wall because it had been rubbed on by cattle or whatever. One Christmas my Dad need to take a load of hay (I think) to somewhere north of us. I'm sorry I am sketchy on the details.....but it won't matter once we get to the punch line. Anyway, we took the big truck....think 1950's farm truck with loud motors, grinding gears, wind whistling in around the windows and floor, and signs of the mice inhabitants everywhere.

I jumped in to go along for the ride. We went somewhere up by Gates I think and that is sandhill country there. We pulled out into the pasture and there, the most beautiful perfect cedar tree stood. There was not a bad side. It was the perfect size (you can sometimes get a "smallish" tree out in the pasture only to get it home and realize it is 12 feet tall and you have 9 foot ceilings). Dad and I both spotted it and we both wanted to bring it home for our Christmas tree. But we didn't have anything to cut it with. It was sandy there and Dad did have a chain behind the seat. We decided to loop the chain around the bottom of the tree and just pull it right out of the ground and trim the bottom off at home. So that's what we did.

Dad shifted into "granny" and slowly eased forward until he felt the resistance ever so slightly and knew the slack was out of the chain. Then he incrementally pushed on the gas to start pulling the tree out. It bent a little and we knew it was going to work and he gave it a little more gas and the chain popped off the bottom of the trunk and whipped right up the tree and tore off almost every limb until it flipped off the top. The tree was bare naked except for a perfect little top. We didn't even say anything. Dad didn't even stop and get the chain unhooked....he just drove to the gate and got out to unhook it then and put it back behind the seat. There were still some little prickly cedar tree leftovers lodged in the chain. It was a sad thing. We just drove home. I don't think we even told the rest of the family. They would not have believed such a perfect pasture Christmas tree existed anyway. It would have been just like "the one that got away" stories. But I am telling you, that would have been a gorgeous tree.

This year, we didn't even start hunting for our tree until Christmas Eve. So the pressure was on. We went to the south place on the east side....the west side gave us some nice trees before the fire went through there.

We scared up a deer convention going through the pasture. There were muley's and whitetail grazing on a flat and when we startled them the whitetail headed one way and the muley's the other.

Cole spotted several really nice and full 20 foot trees. :) He likes them fat and full. I don't know if he will be able to keep the tradition alive when he is out on his own.

We found a place that had several little ones and got out to scout them out. The shadows were getting longer and we tried to communicate the urgency to the Coleminator. He would not be rushed.

We found a decent one and with just two chops of the axe John had it down. We threw it on back and headed home.

Cole had gotten the decorations out a few days in advance and he did all the decorating. He decorated everywhere.

I mean EVERYWHERE.

He has always loved Christmas lights.

We opened presents the next morning and John read the Christmas story from Luke. This is the first year that Cole hasn't acted out the Christmas story with the Nativity while John read. He is growing up. He is really upset if the Wise men are placed at the Bethlehem stable with Baby Jesus. He says that is not correct and he can't figure out why all Nativity scenes have them there. The boy is pretty rigid on details. But if you are wondering why the three wisemen below are not in town....it is because Cole says they won't even get to Jesus until he is almost 2. :) So they are EAST of the Nativity. Try to get that corrected if you anticipate a holiday visit from Cole.