Christmas Tree Week 2023

Part I: Cutting the Tree

The day after Thanksgiving, on Friday, November 24th, we got our Christmas tree from the mountains. We were all exhausted from the move and from Thanksgiving, but we made the 80 minute drive to get our Christmas tree on Black Friday out of pure tradition. It was cold (22°) in White Pass but not snowy. We found a nice a tall tree for our new house! It was actually one of our quicker tree-hunting expeditions. It took four of us to team-carry the tree down the steep steep hill to the clearing. Only Jeff in the front of our tree-carrying line could see anything, so it was like a blind trust walk through the forest with tree branches whipping our faces, tripping over logs and slipping downhill, all while carrying a 20 foot Christmas tree. 

Our van doesn't have a roof rack, so we threaded the ratchet straps through the windows and drove the long interstate -free way home to avoid going above 60mph. We couldn't find our Christmas tree stand when we got home, so Jeff and I went to Ace Hardware to get a new tree stand. Ace didn't have any tree stands, and we refused to go anywhere near Walmart on Black Friday, so we ordered a tree stand from Amazon and went home. We were so dead tired after the long long long week, so we propped the tree in a bucket of water in a corner of the barn and called it good for the day.

I was so desperately tired after all that, I went to bed for a much needed two hour nap. The intense week of moving and extra Thanksgiving cooking caught up to me all at once!

It was not snowy in the mountains, but it was COLD!

This is a picture of Jeff cutting the tree down with Jay's help. The greenery was thick.

Our tree! This picture was ridiculously hard to take because I forgot my tripod in the car, so I had to do the prop-phone-on-a-log-and-set-the-timer technique.

We cut about five feet off the bottom of the tree before strapping it to the roof of our van.

Amber scraped up some of the frost crusting thinly on the ground and threw it in the air like snow.

Frosty sparkles!

Jay, carrying the tree.

Since we strapped the tree through our van windows, Jeff had to climb in through the driver side window when he was done tightening the straps.

The 1 hour 20 minute drive home turned into a 1 hour 50 minute drive since we had to take minor highways to preserve our precarious rooftop Christmas tree.

Bucket, tree, barn.

Part II: Ten Day Interim

While our tree waited to be decorated, life kept rolling along. A few days after we got the Christmas tree, the stand arrived in the mail. Jeff and I set up the tree inside our house with relative ease (it's a good tree stand), and then left it for another almost week while life swirled around us. Amber started leaving for the bus stop five minutes earlier than before the move, since our new driveway is so long. Every day I unpacked and organized more of our new living space. On the Monday after Thanksgiving Break, with no warning, the painters showed up and painted the exterior of our house. It was a bit of an insecure feeling, seeing their shadows against the plastic window coverings, but it was even more unnerving when they suddenly started peeling the plastic off of the windows in the afternoon when they were done painting! Suddenly I was almost face to face with these guys up against our windows! Haha. We like the "Balanced Beige" color of the house. For some reason the painters didn't finish painting the trim white, so maybe that's another project for another day. 

I walked Amber down our long driveway to wait for the bus on her first school day at our new house.

I now love watching Amber trudge up the long driveway in the morning to catch the bus. 

Can you spot the yellow bus on the road way off in the distance?

Organizing the kitchen was a process. I am so glad this task is done! 

Well hiiiii there painter! Hahaha

Our freshly painted house.

Our clothes dryer didn't have the right plug, and our laundry situation was quickly becoming dire, so Jeff ordered a new cord and YouTube-learned how to replace the cord. But then the thing still wouldn't work. We figured it was the plug. We checked the breaker box in the garage, and nothing. So the next day an electrician came out to fix it and...we discovered a second breaker box that needed a switch flipped. Then the dryer worked fine. While he was at it, the electrician checked Jeff's cord wiring job, and said it was very good. Go Jeff!

As of this writing on December 3rd, we still have half a pumpkin pie in the fridge.

One morning this week, a small herd of sheep wandered up our driveway towards our yard. I went outside and shooed them away. Last week some rogue cows prowled through our yard, but we didn't see them due to the plastic wrapped windows. Our neighbor told us about it. Country living is amusing!

The tree is up!

Amber got her first pair of sneakers with tying laces, and she already knew how to tie them from last year's boots. It takes her a while to do it, but she is undaunted. When time is short in the morning, we each tie one shoe.

On Thursday night, Jeff and Jay were away at the first high school swim meet of the season. It was too far away for us to go be spectators, so the girls and I had a onesie night and made our first round of Christmas cookies.

Amber and I made gingersnaps, and Rose decided to make snickerdoodles.

I have to admit, I was so tired and a bit frazzled by the end of the flour flinging sugar slinging bake-a-thon, but hopefully my daughters have a happy memory of cookie baking with their mom.

It SNOWED on Thursday night and into Friday morning, right in time for December 1st. Thankfully it all melted by the next day, but still. SNOW. And I had to  DRIVE in it. Shudder. (reminder: Sunnyside does not usually plow any roads)

The living area was looking much more livable by the end of the week, after my many many many hours of organizational effort.

The Ambookworm. She is finally reading chapter books without pictures sometimes now! Woot!

Part III: The Lighted Farm Implements Parade

While we were watching/dozing to A Muppet Christmas Carol together as a family on Saturday evening (December 2nd), I got a message from a friend asking if we were going to the parade. I jolted awake and looked at my watch. It was only 5:15pm--we had time! We took a quick family vote on whether or not to go to the parade. Jay and Amber voted no. Rose voted yes. Jeff voted that he would support whatever choice I made. I voted yes, so we grabbed our coats and shoes and drove towards town. As usual, we parked half a mile away from the parade lineup and then walked up and down the line of parade floats and lighted vehicles. We were in and out of there door to door in less than an hour. When we got home, we finished watching our Muppets movie. 

My photography was at an all-time low. I just didn't feel like taking pictures, so I snapped a handful and then just enjoyed the bright cheerful fun lights with my family. Amber counted Santas that she saw. I lost count and Amber decided to double her number when we turned around and walked back along the parade route, so I'm not sure how many Santas were in the parade this year.

Amber makes the most unexpected faces in picture.

Blurry family selfie! Like I said, my photo-game was off. I didn't even check to see if this picture turned out until we got home, so a blurry one is all we got!

 

Part IV: Decorating the Tree

Ten days after we got our tree, we finally felt ready physically and emotionally to tackle decorating our biggest Christmas tree ever. Note to my future self: it is definitely worthwhile to wait until we are all in the right mood to decorate the Christmas tree! After church and a good lunch on December 3rd, we cranked some Christmas music, preheated the oven, and got to work. Jeff and Jay put on the lights while Amber and I rolled and baked gingersnap cookies. Rose read a book on the couch and eventually joined in with the cookies. Our house was bustling with activity and felt extra festive with the Christmas music, twinkle lights on the tree, and sweet scent of fresh ginger cookies. Yum! 

Once the lights were on the tree, we had an ornament-hanging free-for-all wherein the kids teased me by trying to hang the ugliest ornaments and I wondered yet again why I even kept some of those ornaments all of these years. Thankfully last week when the girls and I were buying extra lights for our extra tall tree, we also bought a container of red baubles to fill in the branches. It ended up being just right--not too many ornaments but not too sparse either. 

Our tree is BRIGHT and cheerful and so tall! We love our new house so much.

Jay learned all about the frustrations of attaching lights to a bendy thin mountain Christmas tree.

We had to use an actual ladder!

We baked the last pan of Rose's snickerdoodles and then started in on the gingersnaps.

Our tree! Everyone was pretty goofy and loopy on cookie sugar by this point, and it took more than three tries to get everyone in the picture properly. I wonder if we need a bigger star, or if a bigger star would just bend the tall skinny tree top sideways like it used to do on our smaller trees.

I love the glow of a Christmas tree in a dark room.