Dec 6th--Christmas tree cutting day

I think it's only fair that I tell the story, and I mean the WHOLE story, of the Christmas tree cutting.

Cory has always fancied the act of driving up into the forest to cut a Christmas tree. Every year since I first moved in with him in Denver in 2005, we have re-enacted this tradition (or some version of it). In the beginning, we would go Christmas tree hunting near Granby, and once we moved to Fort Collins we went up to a place near Red Feather Lakes. In all of our times, Cory has been a rep of the fam. One year, I pumped milk in the car during our outing. One year, Lacey went up with Cory because I hung back with infant Ruby & 2-year-old Scout. Scout & Ruby have tagged along on all of our outings since 2010.

Now, back during the outing of 2013, we had a bit of a challenge. As with anything, you're bound to have an off year. Well, kids were freezing (actually, Ruby was basically losing her mind with cold), and I was fairly convinced that this tradition could be easily replaced by a pre-lit number from Costco, but 2014 was a redeeming year.

A friend of mine, Polly, approached me the day before to see if she could caravan up with us, so this year we had company as well. (Which, truth be told, was a bit of a conundrum, since they arrived 30 minutes after our agreed-upon time and didn't have much in the form of winter boots--Ooops!) But, this year, the girls were dressed warmly, and the stubborn 4-year-old had miraculously been replaced by a 5-year-old with a bit of stamina. We had snacks, we had fun, we remembered the camera, but we did forget the small pot to cook the hot chocolate in! It helped that in all the hubbub of 2013, Cory felt convinced that he had found the perfect lot from which to begin our journey, and I was optimistic. Optimal tree proximity was bound to save us all from traipsing around for hours on end.

And we did it. And you can even see SMILES throughout the photos. Not like last year when I took 5 photos before we started the process, and then just stopped clicking (because, seriously, nobody wants to see tears and snot photos).  And even though there were tears this year, it helped that they came from children that I was not biologically related to! You know, those frozen toes are someone else's problem!

The Christmas Tree Cutting tradition lives on!