Thank you for all of your suggestions! While the intention of my post was not to elicit compliments, you all warmed my heart and showed me some LUV! I am overwhelmed by your kindness and truly appreciate your nice comments and encouragement- we spend a lot of time making the newsletter the best that we possibly can, and it's nice to know that people like it... I have really enjoyed reading over all of your comments and suggestions, and over the next several months I am sure that we will be implementing many of them. (By the way, if you haven't entered the giveaway yet, you have until Tuesday at 11:59 pm EST. Click here for details.)
And by "we," I mean my whole family works on the newsletter in some capacity. I develop recipes & projects, write the instructions and the rest of the "copy," and do the illustrations and artwork that we use to "decorate" the newsletter. My husband handles all of the technical stuff- laying out content, scheduling, following up on statistics, etc. My oldest daughter, Samantha, who is also a guest blogger here every Friday, does the beautiful color celebration collages for every issue and also helps develop recipes and projects. My youngest daughter, who is 17, does some graphic work in PhotoShop and also helps with the recipes. So you see, it takes a village to write a newsletter! My many, many thanks to them for helping out with "Mom's project."
On Saturday, we went to the Christmas tree farm that we go to every year. The weather was warm- a little too warm for Christmas time activities, if you ask me- but we were happy that daughter Samantha and son-in-law Jeff were able to go with us. We chose our tree, and Sam and Jeff picked out their very first tree together.
When you get to the farm, you climb on a wagon pulled by a tractor. They drive you out to the middle of the farm and drop you off. It smells so good and pine-y! Then, you start looking for your perfect tree....
(My 2 favorite girls in the world....)
(Jeff and Sam look for their first tree....)
When you find your tree, one of the workers cuts it down for you (they don't trust the general public with chain saws.... gee I can't imagine why....)
Then they put your initials on the bottom of the tree, and throw it on the wagon for you, and you get back on the wagon and ride back up with your tree...
They put the tree in a bundler. It goes in like this:
And then it comes out like this:
While you are waiting for them to bundle your tree, you pay for it and have complimentary coffee, hot cocoa and cookies.
When I was a kid, we always had a fake tree, and I never visited a tree farm until about 10 years ago- now it is one of our favorite family traditions.... I can't imagine a Christmas without it.
What's your favorite holiday family tradition?
That is a wonderful place to get a tree and a nice tradition. I have started using small prim trees for now, since the kitties get a bit rambunctious with the large ones.
ReplyDeleteI love the tree in the newsletter and might just try that. I have some glitter paint that is clear with glitter, so might try that.
Debbie
Awesome tradition. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteWhen my kids were little we would go to a tree farm to pick out our tree. We brought our own saw or they had hand saws they loaned people and we got to cut our own down. One year both my husband and I forgot to bring any money as each thought the other had money and we didn't realize it till the tree was cut down. My husband had to run home and get some money while the kids and I waited with the tree. At the time it wasn't so funny but now it is a good story to tell. As my kids got older they weren't really interested in going to cut the tree so we have started buying from a lot. Not quite as much fun but still there is nothing better than a live tree to decorate for Christmas. I love the smell in my house.
ReplyDeleteAs a child, and then with my kids, we used to go up to the mountains in northern California/Nevada and cut our own tree. When I was a kid about 6 families would go - what a blast! With my kids, it was usually just us and my parents...we managed to have fun whether there was snow on the mountains or just mud!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful tradition and a fantastic tree farm! Sounds lovely!One of my favorite traditions is putting out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer along with reindeer food (oatmeal with glitter). Such fond memories to cherish!
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly our favorite way to get a tree for Christmas, and we used to live close enough to a great tree farm that offered a wonderful experience. Now I live in the 6 million acre Adirondack Park. As you can image, a place with this many trees has no tree farms, but we still buy our trees locally that have already been cut. Unfortunately the forrest can't shape and protect its own trees. Anything below 5 feet from the ground is "snacks" for the deer and moose here. Thanks for posting...nice blog!
ReplyDelete