We got our tree a little early this year. We
took a little family outing on Sunday to this cut-your-own
place about 1/2 hour away. It was a lot of fun. The field is
big and not much of a walk, and they also have a cool ski-lift
swing, Santa, free candy canes and hot chocolate and other
stuff to do. Lex wanted a little tree, and I would have gotten
it for him except that the trees all cost the same amount, so I
couldn’t really justify $36 for a tiny tree in addition to the
full-size one I wanted. He was quite happy with the big one we
decided on and even happier to see Alan get on the ground and
cut it down… and even happier to see Alan haul it back to the
place on his shoulder. That boy loves his daddy!

Lex’s favorite part of the trip was a
tractor-drawn wagon ride through the field. The point was to
bring people out into the fields to get a tree, but we cut one
close by then rode the wagon just for fun. It was freezing, but
he loved it. He wanted to stay on for another ride, then wanted
to go back on it again later. Crazy boy. He wanted nothing to
do with Santa though. He actually liked the idea of visiting
Santa, until he saw the guy (perfectly normal and ok looking Santa, of
course) and then he said “no, no, no” and wouldn’t go near him.
Same thing happened last year. And the year before he didn’t
say no (he was only 7mos) but did spit up all over Santa! :)
Eve spent the day in the belly pack snuggled up against me. We
both stayed toasty, in the belly area anyway. She was amused
mostly by Lex’s exuberance for the whole event.

When we got home and put up the tree he got
even more excited. He kept saying “Wanna look at the tree. What
a nice tree. What a tall tree. Ooohhh, what a nice tree.” And
other such excited statements. I thought for sure he’d help
decorate it, but instead he played with the ornaments and tried
to crawl under/behind/on/in the tree. And he also put the
little Baby Jesus from our nativity scene to bed in an ornament
box :) I asked where the baby was and he said “the baby is
sleeping. Sleeping in the box.” Then a few minutes later he came running up to
me, handed me the baby, and said “baby woke up now!” Now that
it’s all decorated he loves to turn on the lights and say
“ooohhh, look at the tree.” The low hanging ornaments have also
become new crawling objectives for Eve. Can’t safely leave her
in the living room anymore!