Oh, Christmas Tree

We barely had time to digest our third Thanksgiving dinner of the weekend before I was itching to move on to the main event of the season...Christmas!! I was all kinds of excited about this being the first year that the McCarty family would cut down our own tree! If we're going to claim to be all outdoorsy and all, it's only appropriate. While my husband begged me to pack up the mule and the chainsaw and head into the forest to find our tree, I instead opted for the cultivated orchard/tree farm experience. I mean, we're not freaking frontiersman here, as much as his beard wants you to believe otherwise. 

Anyway, we headed to one of our ultimate family happy places - Eckert's Farm, Belleville - to take a nice warm bus out to a beautiful field of perfectly coiffured Christmas trees, any of which would look beautiful in our living room. They had field after field of pretty little trees all lined up in rows, just waiting for us to make our selection. Mac was in charge of the measuring tape and possibly measured every single tree we passed. Once again, he liked the little ones and the smaller they were, the more adamantly he wanted to take them home with us. Once again, I liked the giant trees that would never even fit through our front door, forcing Ryan to be the voice of reason - talking us both into more appropriately sized trees. Mimmy just ran around hugging every single tree, petting the branches and saying how much she loved them all. Occasionally, she'd just sit down in the middle of everything and refuse to move until I gave her a snack. That kid is something. 

It only took us about 20 minutes of aimless wandering around to find the PERFECT tree! We all unanimously decided that it was the most gorgeous little tree on the whole lot and everyone else there was a fool to have missed this beauty. We stood around staring at it for a good long while, making wagers on how hard it was going to be to cut through the trunk with the handsaw provided. Ryan did the honors, while Mac supervised and Mim ate graham crackers. He had our tree felled in no time (literally, less than a minute). So, we hauled her back to the road and took her home with us to decorate! Her name's Holly and she's been a constant source of joy for the kids (and our cat). We couldn't be happier with the new addition to our family. 

How do you tree? 

Real tree or artificial? 

Cut your own or pick out at a lot?