In beauty green will always grow, through summer sun and winter snow.

*Warning: This post got kinda long. I apparently am a sentimental sap when it comes to Christmas trees. You have been warned...

Let's talk about Christmas trees, shall we? The first year we were married, we had no Christmas tree. Why? Well, we got married 6 days before Christmas and got back from honeymooning just in time to celebrate with our families. A Christmas tree would have been silly. You want to know what else is silly? This picture of us just a few days after we were married in front of Josh's parent's tree. Oh my goodness, I look like I'm 11 and Josh's shirt?
 Priceless. 

Our second Christmas, we were terribly poor. Terribly. Our uncle, Larry, had given someone (Josh's sister? Dad? Mom? Somebody?) a gift card to Smith's, but since they had no Smith's in their town, it was passed down to us. I knew what we were going to do with it. Buy our Christmas tree. I think we maybe spent $10 of our own money, but we ended up with the most plush and *almost* too tall tree for our apartment. Our ornaments were from our wedding (clear vases with blue and brown ornaments in them) so it was really sentimental and I loved it. We didn't have a tree topper, so Josh brought out Walter, our FAO Schwarz bear he bought me on our honeymoon and placed him on top. It was perfect.

Our third Christmas was the first with the twins. We were still pretty poor (but not as terribly poor) but we didn't have a lot of space. Our new apartment had been taken over by baby stuff and for one reason or another, we settled on this tiny tree and used one of the girls hats they were given in the NICU as a topper. Also, I'm not sure why there were no wedding ornaments? I think maybe I added them later along with the white icicles? I really don't remember.

Last year was our fourth Christmas together. We went Christmas tree shopping with our neighbors and came home with this bad boy. By this time, we also had invested in a tree topper and had to use a little table and the bench from our kitchen table as a barrier to protect the tree from two little trouble makers.

  

This year, we did something entirely different. Instead of going to some parking lot for our tree, Josh decided he wanted a fresh tree. One that we could actually cut down ourselves. We found a tree farm in Alpine and zipped on over right before they closed to pick out and cut down the perfect tree.  

       

 

  

 

 

  

 

 It was really, really fun. I was a *bit* stressed while we were there just because two toddlers running in opposite directions between rows and rows of evergreens is chaotic. They could fit into nooks and crannies where I couldn't and I was convinced we were going to lose them. Don't worry though, as I was told by one of the workers, it's all "fenced in". Umm...you think I care, buddy? There are THOUSANDS of trees here and dozens and dozens of families. Sure it's cool you have a fence, but that provided minimal reassurance. 

Anyway, we ended up finding a tree unlike our previous three. We didn't realize exactly how tall it was because compared to surrounding trees, it was actually on the shorter side. We chopped it down (i.e. someone came and did it for us. I kind of wish they would have let us do it...) and loaded it in the truck.

  
(although I should make a point that we SHOULD have realized how tall it was. The stick Josh has? It's 8' long...)



 
I love how tall it is. I love that we have vaulted ceilings in our living room to allow us such a tree. I love that it looks like a tree you'd find in the mountains. Imperfect, with big gaps between the branches. I love how our collection of wedding ornaments only covered a 1/4 of it. I love that it's the first thing you see when you walk into our home. I have fallen in love with it and get sad when I think about how temporary having it in my home is. I love the way the girls admire and talk about the "Chrisnis tree". I'm hoping it makes it way past Christmas since it was still growing in the ground not even two weeks ago. Josh said his Grandma had a tree that was freshly cut and it lasted until Easter. EASTER! (which by the way falls on my birthday this next year and I think it would be awesome to still have a tree up)

I love Christmas and I love having a live tree. Definitely worth the effort to have that fresh pine smell in our house all month long.