The Christmas tree

We've been getting our Christmas tree from the same farm for four years now, and I just learned that the farm has a website!  I doubt many of you live nearby, but I wholeheartedly recommend this place.  My family genuinely looks forward to going there each time.  Not only do they have cut-your-own trees and a quality selection of pre-cut ones, but there is a petting zoo, bunnies to hold (Taylor's favorite part), a walking trail around a pond, hot chocolate and boiled peanuts for sale (Dad's favorite part), and the staff is always very friendly.

This year, Taylor and I talked with the bunny monitor for a good while.  She was cheery and very willing to tell us about how she was worried about her coming trip to Ireland for her next semester where she would study marketing.  Taylor has been to Ireland before and told her to not worry because of course she would love it and have fun.  When we were finished with our boiled peanuts and got ready to leave, we thanked her for talking with us and she said she'd have to tell us about her trip when we came back to the farm next year.  Awesome.

A Charlie Brown ChristmasVia: A Cartoon Christmas

Another success story comes from the tree search.  The weather last Saturday wasn't very friendly, and I'd just learned that Dad accidentally used my toothbrush when he and I met Mom and Taylor at the farm.  I immediately came to my sister and we walked off to the usual place as I told her about the toothbrush.  We briskly glanced over the few trees that were left (this was the farm's last day of the season).  We stopped abruptly at the first tree that looked acceptable, circled it once, and shouted to our parents that we'd found "the one."  They sauntered over suspiciously, probably thinking that my sister's and my get-the-job-done attitudes were just trying to kill everything, but Mom approved our tree.

I jumped in happiness (really)!  No shopping trip with Mom had ever taken less than 25 minutes, but we'd found our tree in 45 seconds!  I lept off to tell the boys who would get our tree for us that we'd found it so quickly, but I became sheepish after a few skips and came back to my family.  "I thought you were going to tell everyone about how we found the tree, Lindsay..."  Taylor said.  I gathered my spirits and tried again, sans the leaping this time.  The boys weren't as excited as I'd hoped they'd be, but the owner lady (who's probably required to smile at us) seemed happy.