Our Christmas Tree Tradition

A real tree is a MUST at the Roseland house! 

Hubby has to have real, he says he loves the smell.  I love the smell too, but what I don't love is the mess!  Little needles everywhere!  Always sweeping up after the tree it seems...I wish for a fake tree at the start of the Christmas {decorating} season each year, but quickly forgot about those wishes when it is time to go pick out a tree {insert tradition here}!

  We usually go to the same lot to pick out our tree.  It is usually pretty cold and the tree picking goes pretty quick so we can get back into the truck to warm up for our favorite part!

The Light Show!!!

Last year in the field next to the lot where we get our tree, they had a huge Christmas light show set up that you could drive your vehicle through and when we saw it setting up this year, we knew we would head back and that it would become a tradition of ours every year after we picked out our tree!

So with our tree loaded in the back of the truck we got in line to see the show!  It takes about 30 minutes to get to the start, but with Christmas music blasting, we sang songs and took advantage of some photo ops with each other to kill the time!  

The kids are always so excited with anticipation at the point and it is so cute to listen to what they say as we creep up slowly to the lights!  Kyan loves that he gets to stand up on the middle console and poke his head through the moon roof {Lola joins him, but only for a minute or two} the whole time we drive through and Lola settles in the front, either on my lap or standing between my legs with her head poking out the window!

It was way too late this year to decorate the tree when we got home {let's just say it was MORE than a busy weekend!  Saturday: Kyan's last game, photo shoot, Donna's birthday party, tree/light show.  Sunday: decorate the tree, Avery's birthday party, Kyan's baseball party, AJ's birthday party, teach Donna how to use her birthday/Christmas present...whew!} so we did it Sunday morning when we woke up!   The kids hopped right out of bed and waited patiently to start putting ornaments on the tree while Chad worked on the lights that seemed to not want to work properly!

  The kids walked around with those birds on their shoulders while waiting to put everything on the tree!  It was actually really cute! 

We decorate our tree with a mixture of old ornaments from Chad and my past Christmas' as kids, new ones bought together as a family, and homemade ones from the kids!  Lola seems to touch every single one and know exactly which ones she put up too!  Kyan was the proudest to hang his nutcracker that Grandma Donna found for him at a sale.  He is hung closest to the star to protect it!  While I do love a themed tree, our really love the randomness of our tree.  No rhyme or reason, just a lot of memories all in one spot!

Feeling more and more like Christmas each day!