Oh Christmas Tree

We decided rather spontaneously on Sunday that it was time to get our tree. Normally this would involve pulling our artificial tree out of the basement and setting it up. But we realized last week that we never retrieved our tree from Grandma and Grandpa Weiss’ basement, so we opted to go live this year.

So we loaded into the van and drove to Mennards (we didn’t want to spend a lot on the tree). After much debating about the relative merits of the different varieties of tree (after all, Ethan is VERY into trees right now), we settled on a white pine because it smelled the best.


Normally, we make a big production out of tree decorating – scheduling the date on the calendar, making Christmas cookies, listening to Christmas music, drinking cocoa and eggnog. Being spontaneous meant breaking several traditions this year.

But I gamely switched gears for dinner and made Ethan’s favorite (and one of our most portable) dinner of spinach turnovers. While they were cooking a whipped up a batch of peanut butter cookies with kisses, and away we went.

We ate upstairs (not typical) while watching the football game (breaking the carols tradition) before decorating the tree. Ethan followed a “one ornament, one bite of cookie” routine, and eventually we declared the tree decorated.


While we were unpacking the decorations, Ethan discovered my Santa hat. So he amused himself for the rest of the evening playing Santa on the couch while John pretended to be a succession of boys and girls sitting on his lap.