Is there sap in that thing?

***Updated****

Well, the buzz of the Christmas holiday has begun and I am so giddy and so happy I can't hardly stand it! This is my absolute FAVORITE time of the year! Even more so now that I have a child of my own to experience the magic that Christmas brings. To me Christmas is about tradition and family and most importantly about the birth of my Savior, Jesus Christ (more to come about this ultimate gift in later posts).

So, I decided that this year I wanted to start some new traditions. We have already trimmed the inside trees (we have to have artificial ones because I love to have them up for too long for the life of a real tree to withstand) and the outside has been decorated. Well, you might ask, what more is there to do? And the answer is, decorate the deck with a real-go-to-the-woods-and-cut-it-down cedar tree. Yes, that's right. No tree farms for us; we have to have the rocks, hills and muddy slop that comes with trekking through the woods for the perfect D-Wold (like Griswold) family Christmas tree.

We set out to find that "perfect" tree roaming the pastures of Husband's parents farm. We drove from corner to corner hoping that we wouldn't have to get out (since it was raining and the temperature was very-near freezing...OK maybe only around 40 degrees, but it felt freezing to me).

Here is Husband and D-Man scoping out our options from the driver's seat (yes, D-Man is not in his car seat because we are driving in the middle of the pasture and Husband wanted him to get all he could out of the experience).

No options were to be found from the inside of the heat-blowing-on-high cab, so into the woods we went.

D-Man wasn't always happy to be trekking through the rainy, wet woods, but he persevered.

And we walked and walked and walked until I thought I could walk no more (well, not really, I just thought it made for a more exciting story). We actually walked just a few hundred feet and then we came upon this (imagine that song from Christmas Vacation is playing and a bright spotlight is shining upon it)...

This tree is what we believed was the "perfect" tree for our deck. Yes, the top is not able to be viewed because it was quite possibly a little taller than we expected.

So, Husband and D-Man set out sawing the tree down.

And they hauled it over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house...oh sorry, I mean they hauled it through the woods and to the truck. D-Man liked the look of Husband dragging the tree and so he walked from behind.

And we (I like to feel I had a hand in things since I was the "official" photographer) took it to the truck only to learn that it might be a little bigger than anticipated (imagine the Griswolds cutting the rope that was holding their tree closed only to find that it completely filled their ENTIRE living room--we had this same feeling).

Now the Queen Mother commented on an earlier post that this might be the ugliest tree she has ever seen (and I admit, looks can be deceiving). But let me assure you that to us it became the prettiest real tree we have ever had (wait, this was the first real tree we have ever had, so I guess we really have nothing to compare it to). Anyway, we brought it home and Husband cut about 3 feet off of it. We put it in the tree stand, brought it onto the deck, decorated it with colored lights and ta-da, we have...

Our D-Wold Family Christmas Tree! OK, so I admit that it isn't the fullest, perfectly round tree that you find at the tree farms or in the tree lots, but it is more about the memories that we made and the fun we had and the experience we shared, don't you think?

***Update-The tree know stands, I mean lays, in a heap on the deck because a big wind blew it over last night. All I wanted was a new tradition of getting a tree ourselves in the woods. Is that too much to ask?????***