When Josh and I moved into our first house that we built together, back in 2003, a Christmas tree farm just down the road put out signs to sell trees. Since we had gotten married, we had used the fake one that I bought in college (when I wanted one, but was still traveling home several weeks and knew a live one would be a fire hazard).
In 2003, we went to cut down our first tree at the little tree farm.
Things change, a lot, in 14 years, apparently. The little tree farm is not so little. And it's certainly not so little known. Because they had sold out of trees about two hours before we arrived. On Sunday, at 4 p.m. Just two and a half days after they opened on the day after Thanksgiving. We were not one of the 1,000 lucky people to cut down a tree this year.
Instead, we got a pre-cut fir tree out of their barn.
It was still raised and cut off the little tree farm, but was not quite the same as cutting one down yourself.
The boys still walked the fields, just because ...
Xander was very disappointed. He wanted this one, but it was no longer for sale.
Connor said he should have stayed longer at Grandma and Grandpa's house (they brought him home a few hours early so he could go with us for the annual tradition).
Sawyer was just mad that we were standing in the barn instead of wandering around the farm like usual.
We got a beautiful tree. And it looks great. But it was not the same.
There will be no Christmas card photo of the boys in the field cutting down the tree or riding in the sleds they use to haul the trees back to your vehicle. There were just a few quick snaps that we took as we walked around the bare rows of trees, and the disappointed looks on Connor and Xander's faces when we told them, no, we could not cut down the few remaining trees that were standing (some had been bought and reserved early, some were just being left to have trees in the coming years, as it takes seven years for a full tree to grow on the farm).
We still had a pot of chili back at the house. Grammy, Pappy and Aunt Kelly all came with us and helped us "pick out" our tree - albeit a little differently this year. They all had chili and grilled cheese dinner with us, and stayed to help us hang lights and ornaments and get into the Christmas spirit.
Guess we're camping out next year on Thanksgiving night if we want to cut a tree ... or we'll look into some of the other nearby farms a little further from home that have larger supplies ...