December Daily - Day 3

Olivia has informed me that there are only 21 more days till Christmas Eve. Why does she do this to me??? Oi.

A thought I had today: One of the best "sounds" of Christmas? The crackling of record player as it cranks out Perry Como, Julie Andrews, Johnny Mathis, and Bing Crosby. Better than a CD or iPod any day.


Today we went Christmas tree shopping. Fun. Sort of.
We went to a local Christmas tree farm, but Mike and I were seriously unimpressed after walking the entire field. As we headed back to the van, sans tree, Olivia was in tears because I was being "too picky" and wasn't being nice to the poor trees and Sadie-Rose was in tears because a. we didn't have a tree to take home and b. she really wanted a "sister tree" which happened to be any tiny 2-4 year old scraggly tree that was shorter than she is with only 3-5 branches. (Think "Charlie Brown Christmas tree" and you'll know exactly want I'm talking about.) So, tears all around. I'd call that a success, wouldn't you? ;) Thankfully I had several lollipops stashed in my purse for crisis moments on the plane, but since we had none I was still well stocked. Thankfully, lollipop licking lasted most of us to the nearest Christmas tree lot where we've had good success several times before and where we should have gone in the 1st place. They had the most lovely trees, we had a really hard time deciding because there were several "perfect" ones but eventually we picked one and they got it all loaded up for us and away we went. Happy children and happy parents. Our fragrant tannenbaum is now gracing our living room, unadorned at the moment, and Mike says it's the biggest and heaviest tree we've even had. I can't wait to see it all lit up and decorated. But that will be for tomorrow. Maybe. Or Monday. We'll see.

And we were wished a "Merry Christmas" not once, but twice today! It's the 1st time we've heard it this season and definitely helped with the Christmas spirit.