Happy December!

December is my favorite month of the year. I'm totally a summer person, but there is nothing that beats the magic of this holiday season. The intense push to enjoy each moment and make every day special and celebrated really jives with my desire to live intentionally.

Ali Edwards does a great December Dailies Album, and Jessica Sprague has a great holiday class (Holidays in Hand). Every year I have wanted to try some sort of daily documentation of this month. I am trying my best to be realistic - a beautiful album isn't in the cards for me this year. But blogging? I can do that.

So, starting today, I am going to do my best to document something every day for the next few weeks.

Why start today? Because Christmas officially came to our house today.

Hands down, my favorite holiday decoration is the Christmas tree. And living in the middle of about 1000 Christmas tree farms, they are plentiful. Today we went to a new tree farm to continue our holiday tradition of cutting our own tree.

[Sidenote: Growing up, our family had a wonderful tradition of going out to the woods to cut our Christmas tree every year. While the trees often left a little to be desired, the time to play out in the snow as a family was wonderful. Mom's chili, roasting marshmallows, running around in the snow, and falling asleep in the car on the way home - heaven. But once Dan and I got married, and my sister was in college, tradition had to change. Dan and I found that tree farms still gave us an "event" to celebrate getting our tree without the guilt of killing a poor tree from the forest]




The weather today was perfect - sunny but cold. Christmas weather without being soggy. Both boys chased each other through the dense field of trees, and we even got in a little hide-and-seek amongst the grand and noble fir trees. After discussion of what kind of tree would need, we (Dan always is kind enough to just let me choose the one that I want) found our tree. It is a giant (9-10 ft) noble fir with its own fair share of personality. This tree farm was full service - once we chose our tree, one of their guys came out and cut it down and tied it on our car for us while we enjoyed some cider on the porch next to a roaring fire. Max even got to make a little ornament while we were hanging out. We will definitely return next year!



While we were at the tree farm, I started to see just how special this Christmas is going to be. This year Max is four and Luke is two. Are there any ages more perfect for experiencing the pure joy of all the best the season has to offer? Their eyes light up at any sight of a Santa or Christmas lights. Max is really starting to be interested in the Christmas story (although tonight he asked if Jesus was a girl - think there are some serious holes in his catechism. And upon finding out the Jesus was a boy, the reply? "That's what I was hoping. What a good idea of God's."). While they aren't ready for The Best Christmas Pagent Ever yet, the Polar Express and many other stories are at the ready for encouraging blissful dreams. And they want to believe in all that is good and joyous.

And I'm going to do my best to help them find it.