Here comes Santa Claus and good fortune

This year, I wanted to do a real tree. Actually, I wanted to add a real tree and put up our two fake trees. Insane, I know, but this girl loves sparkle for Christmas. If it don't glitter, it ain't Christmas in my book.

So Jonathan researched tree farms in the area. This was after I nixed his idea of a $50 Groupon for tree delivery. I wanted the real deal: ride a sleigh, pick it out, hack it down, drink hot chocolate, and tote her home. Not having done the tree farm thing before, I didn't realize that's stuff Christmas movies are made of. (Blame my mother in law. She has me watching the Hallmark channel this season.) We did go to a farm that has sleigh ride, cookies, and hot chocolate, so that does exist. But there was no snow like I fantasized. And Vincent didn't want to ride the tractor pulled sleigh ride. He was having a grumpy day. He did enjoy walking through the trees and helping pick one out. To have him tell it, he picked it out all by himself. 

Ironically we ended up with a Frazier fir that was brought in from Wisconsin. We could have picked one of the two varieties grown in Kansas, but we were pretty smitten with the Frazier. Next year I'm going for the Kansas native for the mere experience of hacking it down. It was a pricey adventure ($80) for a species of tree we could have gotten for $30 at a stand, but it was fun to check it out and they shook and tied up the tree for you. Vincent really enjoyed sorting through our ornaments and playing with them. 

In really good news and fortune: Jonathan got a new job! No more 2 hour commute coming our way this summer, more money, and learning new skills to make him more marketable for future jobs, say, in Colorado some day.