our Christmas tree

Our family shopping for our Christmas tree.
We rarely have family pictures, it's usually Patrick and the boys and then me and the boys. This was Patrick's idea and he asked the man to take it. I'm glad he did.
And I'm glad we have this memory. I also have a memory of the man who took it who was holding a cigarette in one hand and my camera in the other. :-)

This is the tree I begged Patrick to let us get.
He {wisely} said it was going to be too big. We ended up getting a different one.

Henry pretending to hold it up.

This caption could be "let's choose that tree!"
But if I'm being honest, it was really "that's where Santa is. Let's stay away from there."




This is the only picture I got of the tree that we chose. We decided that it looked full and was the right height. I also loved the perfect point at the top for our star. No more pictures of perfect tree though because by then,

The boys were running up and down the aisles of trees and

William was insisting on pushing this empty flower cart/wagon thing all around the empty greenhouse area.

At home, Henry helped Patrick trim some of the bottom branches off the tree to make it fit nicely in the stand.
And then it was time to decorate:

William trying to climb the step stool with the star.

Henry finding just the right spots.



The ever-popular and heavily laden bottom branches.

Our tree immediately filled our living room with the fresh pine smell that I love this time of year. It smells so nice coming down the stairs and into the living room. It also filled up more of the corner than we were even expecting. Since the trees are outside, their branches are cold and take awhile to "fall". During the first afternoon after we put it up, the branches seemed to not only be falling but also growing and spreading. Patrick joked that he was afraid we'd wake up in the morning and find our tree completely out into the dining room. It did eventually stop "falling", but it is definitely a full tree. Patrick prefers a more tall and narrow tree while I love a big, fat one. It seems this year I got my wish!