Did Y'all Survive Thanksgiving?

Here it is, week after Thanksgiving, and I'm just "thankful" it's all over with. Is that horrid of me? You know, I do so love the holidays at the end of the year, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The holiday trifecta. However, there does come a time when the "fun" becomes too much and you just want your life to go back to normal. I reached that point yesterday. LOL

We had fun at my sister's house on the big day, and on Black Friday, we went out and chopped down our Christmas tree. Pics can be seen on my hubby's Flickr page:

Christmas tree farm/decoration pictures

As you can see, our tree is red and silver this year. It looks really great, even though our four children oversaw the entire decorating process. I hung a few small balls on the top while DH planted the angel on the tip. All the rest (aside from the lights) our children did. :) Our tree was 9 feet tall and had to be cut from a much taller Noble Fir. You see, DH and I love the Nobles, in part because they LAST the entire Christmas season, and also because their branches allow your ornaments room to dangle. A lot of other firs, the ornaments "rest" on the needles, and that's no bueno. So the Nobles this year were EPIC in size, and the farmer told us to go ahead and lob them off wherever we wanted the height to be. So the part we cut off, (9 feet of tree) was about 4 feet up the trunk! In all, the tree we chose was probably about 13 feet from the ground to the top, as the crow flies. Yup, epic, I tell ya.

Did you know that something like 40% of the country's Christmas trees come from Oregon? So the next time you're buying a tree from your local tree stand... Perhaps it's from the Pacific Northwest.

But there's nothing quite like chopping down your own. The farm we go to does a few things for us. First, if you bought their tree stand from years past, they will give you a free bale for you (which ties up the tree in a thread of plastic twine), and before they bale it, they will shake it on a machine (to get all the dead needles off). That's kinda funny to watch. lol Then, after the tree is baled, they mount it on their base, which has a spike that goes up into the trunk of the tree. This is extremely handy, because all you do is take your tree home, stand it where you want it to go, cut the baling twine, and voila, your tree is perfectly placed and standing straight up and down.

Not only that, but they give you free hot apple cider and hot chocolate along with candy canes. If you want, they also sell wreaths made with real pine branches. So totally cool. It's a little bit of a drive, but it's tradition in the Goings family to go out day after Thanksgiving and start the Christmas season off right. :D

Besides, picking your tree from a "forest" and chopping it down is much more fun that picking it out of a parking lot line up. LOL Of course, I don't do any of the work, so that could be why I like it so... hehehe

If any of you is wondering who that dog is in our pictures, no, she's not our dog. Her name is Reba, and she's the farm's dog, allowed to roam wherever she may go. She was a sweetheart. :)

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com