Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree!

This year, Jon and I chopped down our own Christmas tree. After doing some research, we decided to make the trek to Santa's Christmas Tree Forest to choose our tree from the hundreds of Sand Pines, Red Cedars, and Arizona Cypresses.

You are given a saw, and told to go out and have fun! It took us awhile to find the perfect tree, what with the delicious bag of kettle corn we had bought distracting us, as well as the fact that they were all just a little short, a little too wide, a little to bare, etc. We finally found our perfect tree when we had had our fill of popcorn. Jon sawed it down, we dragged it to the end of the row, and then we, with our tree, got a hayride back to the front of the farm. They shook it and wrapped it, and then we were ready to go!

We tied it to the top of the car and started driving away (this place was about 45-60 minutes away from our house). Almost as soon as we started out on the road we heard strange noises and saw the plastic we had put around the tree flapping in the wind. We also noticed that the person behind us was keeping a... safe distance. Uh oh. We figured our tree was probably hanging on for dear life, so Jon drove just about as slow as possible until we got to the nearest gas station. We drove for probably a good 15 minutes just waiting for that thing to fly off of the roof and into the windshield of the car behind us. When we were able to finally pull over, we saw that the plastic was almost completely off the tree, and the tree was just beginning to go with it. Will the tree fit into the back of our Element if we put a seat up?!?! YES, we discovered that it would after 10 minutes of us both sawing away at the twine the tree was tied to the car with, using house keys, car keys, any keys that looked sharp enough.

After we shoved the passenger seat up as far as it would go, the tree fit and we were on our way again with me in the backseat surrounded by tree. The tree went up as soon as we got home, but we decided we were too stressed from the ride to decorate. The next morning when Jon woke up, he noticed that our tree had fallen over in the middle of the night. It was now hanging out on our chair. He fixed it and all was good with the world. When we got home from work that night, we decided to put down the tree skirt, decorate the tree with our ornaments and put on the lights. I was ready with the Christmas music and hot chocolate! Then, as Jon was giving the tree some water, it fell over again. It took us awhile to get it straightened out. It turned out that our tree was a little took big for our tree stand, and to get it to stay upright the tree had to stand just a wee bit crooked. Ok, no worries!

A few minutes after getting the tree fixed, as I was walking by, I saw a grasshopper the SIZE OF MY PALM on one of the branches. I screamed and hid behind the bathroom wall. As soon as Jon saw it, he joined me. We panicked together for a minute or two (because I'm a girl, and because bugs are Jon's greatest enemy). He eventually killed it by spraying half a can of bug spray at it. I think the tree may have fallen over one more time that night. It wasn't decorated until the following night. Our tree was wearing us out.

But even though our tree caused us this much stress and panic, I am still in love with it. Even though it it dried out and going bald, I am still not ready to take it down.

So here it sits, on January 2nd. I'm sure many people still have their tree up... right?? Maybe. It's probably a fire hazard.

When we do get around to it, I just hope there is less excitement taking it down than there was in putting it up.