{O, Christmas Tree}

 The last couple of years we have not gone with our trusty fake, Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Our kids have decided that they much more prefer the smell and experience of going out and finding our own very real Christmas tree.  We were lucky enough in Washington state to live literally up the road from a tree farm.  A short 10 minute drive, 30 minutes to select and cut down the tree and then hoisting it up on top of the van to be taken happily home.  Well this year, we still got a real tree but our options were a little more limited.  There are u-cut Christmas tree farms around our area but sadly they are a little bit of a drive from where we live.  That and the fact that they close at 5pm or dark, doesn't leave much time for us to drive there after work and our weekends have been full.  So up the road about 10 minutes away was a nursery that was selling already cut Christmas trees.  So that is what we had to settle for.  They only good thing was the trees were a really good size and really full.  They had them lined up like they were in a forest, so it kinda felt for real!! :)  The kids narrowed it down to three trees and I think I ended up making the final decision.  We hailed our trusty tree guy over and he untied the tree from it's stake and took it to re cut the bottom and to net it up for us.  They also put it up on the van and tied it down.  We took it home to soak in a bucket of water for a few days before we took it inside to decorate it.  We love how it looks and we LOVE the smell!!