O Tannenbaum!

This year Thanksgiving was late, so it seemed like Christmas came early...and fast!  We got back into town from Georgia, and went the next day to get our tree.  It's become our tradition to go with our friends the Powells to May Lan tree farm.  It's close and quick, and lots of fun.  They were a little late, so we had plenty of time to talk to Santa and think hard about what we wanted for Christmas.

 Eve asked for a stuffed animal panda bear and a Bible with no pictures

 Jake said he'd be happy with food of any kind, and, for the record, had no qualms about sitting with Santa

 Ellie asked for a candy cane.  She's the only one that got hers on the spot.

 John asked for some legos and a laptop.  Aim high, buddy!

 I just noticed Jakes belly is totally hanging out in this picture.  That's pretty much par for the course.

 Jake really enjoyed picking the pig's nose.  His fingers were seriously up there, and he thought it was hilarious.  Gross!

 Cutting the tree is definitely a team effort, although I'll have to say that everyone took one or two pulls on the saw and quickly gave it back to Daddy!

 And then Jake took all the credit!  (Notice the cute shirt from my cousin's wife, Kasey.  It says "Young Buck")

 We managed to get the tree standing that night.

 And then this is where it stood the next afternoon.  Less than 24 hours, and most of that time we were sleeping or the kids were in school.  I wasn't in the room when it happened, but I hear there was some sort of game going on where things were thrown into the tree, then retrieved from a precarious position on the arm of the chair (which we call the "thinking chair" by the way, from Blues Clues).  It took us a long time and lots of effort to get it upright again.  I'm so glad this happened before the lights and ornaments were on!

The kids did almost all of the decorating, and did a fabulous job.  Surprisingly, Jake wasn't all that intrigued with the ornaments, so we didn't have to retrieve them from around the house nearly as much as I thought we would.  He was more interested with the reflection of the lights in the window than the actual lights, too, which I found interesting.  I don't think I got a picture of the tree all decorated, but honestly, I could take a few pictures a day and they'd all look different.  Even though the interest was less than I expected, everyone still had some to move, some to break, some that just fell, some to add, etc. etc.  It was a tree in constant flux.  We've learned our lesson to keep the really nice ornaments in the box for several years down the road.