Saturday, December 1, 2012

Day 1 - Christmas Tree Hunt

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We started out our Christmas Countdown with a trip to Geer's Tree Farm in Griswold, CT to find the perfect tree for our living room. This tree farm is huge, with rolling hills covered in beautiful trees. First, we hopped on a wagon ride that took us to the top of one of the hills where the trees of our choice, Fraser Fir, where located.

Getting ready to ride up the hill

I was a little nervous at this point because it was chilly riding on the wagon. I was worried that the kids would get too cold before we found a tree!

Jared and the kids, pre-snowball fight!

I shouldn't have worried, for two reasons: first, the kids had so much fun running around looking at trees (and throwing snowballs at their dad while he cut one down), that they totally forgot about being cold. And second, it took all of five minutes to find a beautiful tree. Honestly, all of the trees were just gorgeous. We would have been happy with the very first one we saw, although we did feel like we needed to hunt a little, just to enjoy the experience!

standing in front of the tree we chose
All in all, it was a very fun afternoon, and a great start to our Christmas Countdown!

Here is a picture of our newly completed advent calender, made by my talented friend Brandy Lewis.


Nathan is already very excited and understands that the bird has to land in each of the pockets, one per day, until we get to Christmas at the bottom. In fact, when Jared said "Merry Christmas!" to him earlier tonight, Nathan replied, "No, it's not Christmas yet! We're only on the 1, we have to get all the way to the 25!" pointing at the calender.

Check back tomorrow to find out what we do on Day 2!

Do you prefer real Christmas trees or artificial?
If real, do you like to go cut your own tree down?

6 comments:

  1. Aww.such cute pics of your kiddoes. We got our tree today too. So fun!! Happy holidays heather! Xoxo hanna

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    1. Did you post pictures of your tree yet? I need to get caught up on your blog, Hanna!

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  2. Nate loves to get a permit and go out in the wilderness to cut a tree. It is fun to see what he comes home with each year! I like the idea of going to a farm to cut one down, but I don't know of any tree farms like that around here. I can't wait to see what you guys do each day!

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    1. I remember you talking about his Christmas tree hunts, do you ever go with him? It's hard to do the wilderness thing with little kids, the tree farm was the perfect balance between wilderness and lot with pre-cut trees!

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  3. I love to see the warm winter clothes the children have. Nathan's hat is so functional, so that if he plays hard, it will still stay on. We go cut a cedar tree each year in a friend's field. Even though native Virginians consider the cedar a less than ideal Christmas tree, we love them for their scent and unpredictable shapes. They are interesting to decorate and have lots of space to hang ornaments near the trunk too.

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    1. Oh, that's really interesting! My in-laws cut their own fir trees down and always choose one that is tall and sparse. They wrap lights around each individual branch and as you said, hang ornaments near the trunk as well. It is very pretty.

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