A Real Tree

We haven't had a real Christmas tree since or first year of marriage.  This year, though, all of the artificial lights were blowing and it was shedding, so we thought we'd let the kids experience the smells of a fresh cut tree throughout the house.  My sinuses aren't loving it, but we knew the kids would.

Through the lovely Internet, I was able to find a tree farm just 10 minutes from our house.  I drive past the road all the time, but I would have never noticed their sign.  After going up and down several rows, we found our perfect tree - 9 1/2 feet tall!

All of the kids had their turn at sawing, although I don't think they got anywhere.

They gave free hayrides (with tree purchase)!  We had the whole trailer to ourselves, so that was fun.

These next few pictures are to show my Mom the tree stand we bought at the farm.  It's pretty cool - maybe they are all like this now and I didn't know since it's been almost 15 years since we've bought a tree stand.  There is this spike coming out of the container; probably about 6 inches long.  They drilled a hole in our tree, so all we had to do was hammer the stand to the hole.  Voila, it just stands there by itself without turning the three screws like in the old stands!

Sadly, we have been so busy with school activities that we've not had a chance to put all of the ornaments on our tree, yet.  I'll post some pics when we finally do get a chance.