Kicking off the Season of Joy

In the four short years that we've lived in this house, we've developed a handful of Thanksgiving weekend traditions that I really love.  No matter if we're home or up north on Thanksgiving day, we head out on Friday or Saturday when we return to Hart's Christmas Tree Farm to chop down our Frasier Fir.  This year, it was approximately 27 degrees, cloudy, and windy, so what usually involves a leisurely hayride followed by some videotaping of traipsing around the field debating the merits of each tree became this:

11:14 a.m.:  Dismount wagon hayride, spy tree inches from wagon, declare it to be "The One."

 11:15 a.m.:  Jason saws tree down immediately . . .

   

 . . . while Annie and Jemma huddle together for warmth.

11:16 a.m.:  Get right back on the exact same wagon that brought us out to field and return to have tree bailed, etc. as quickly as possible.  No petting of various small animals, no hot chocolate.

11:45 a.m.:  Snug and happy in a booth at The Corner Bar.

Later that day, we brought the tree inside and decorated it together, requisite listening to Perry Como and John Denver Christmas albums and annual fighting over who gets to hang the Rudolph ornament included.  

We made a fire after dinner and ate homemade vanilla pudding that Jason made with the girls earlier in the day.  Annie stirred, Jemma added the ingredients to the pan.  It was yummy.

This afternoon, to wrap up our weekend of kicking off the Christmas season, we went for the third year in a row to see the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas ballet downtown.  We got dressed up and loved seeing our favorite parts and waited in a long line to sit on Santa's lap afterwards.  I worry that this might be Annie's last year of believing in Santa, and I don't know how many more photos like this are in our future, so these are pretty priceless.

Since we were all fancy, we went to Rose's for dinner afterwards, where Annie tried (and loved) her very first creme brulee and Jemma was content with extra caramel corn.  Now they're in bed and we're on the couch watching Christmas Vacation while the tree twinkles away, gearing up for a big, busy week and feeling, thanks to our traditions, like the Christmas season is really upon us.