Christmas tree cutting

This year we did something we haven't ever done, but was something I had wanted to do. for a long time. Instead of getting our christmas tree at Home Depot, we went and cut it fresh from the mountain. Some friends of ours invited us to join them on their annual tradition. They always go the day after Thanksgiving. So we drove into the Santa Cruz mountains to a Christmas tree farm and spent some time wandering the hillside in search of a perfect tree. The kids weren't used to it and the little one's thought we tromped around much too long. We discovered none of them were "perfect" so we looked for one that was close enough. We had been given a saw to cut it down and each person wanted a turn to use it. Derek probably did the most of the sawing though. After we dragged our tree to the truck, we enjoyed a picnic lunch with our friends. Homemade leftover turkey sandwiches. Yum!

the hill, with so many choices!

At last, we found a tree we liked.

cutting the trunk

Lunch!

Katelyn being cute as always

family picture time

When we took our tree home, we discovered it was the biggest one we'd ever had. Derek had to keep cutting it down to get it inside. And with our tree topping, it touched our ceiling. We decided that we liked getting our tree that way, so hopefully we do that again next year.