For a long time, my family had a tradition of going Christmas tree shopping soon after Thanksgiving. We’d all load up — aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, siblings — and head out to a tree farm. The tradition has sort of waned in the last few years as we’ve all grown up and gotten busy, but my sister Kelli made an attempt to get some of us together to shop for trees this year. Despite busy and conflicting schedules, a few of us were going to go out this afternoon.

But then it started raining. Pouring actually, and my dad said we should probably reschedule. Except I didn’t know that, so the Giraffe and I sat around waiting for someone to call us and say we were ready to go (we were waiting for Kel’s husband to get out of work). Finally at 1:30 I called and asked what was up. Oh, we’re rescheduling, didn’t you know?

No, we didn’t. The Giraffe and I were eager to get a tree this weekend, so we decided to go to Lowe’s, where we picked up a Scotch Pine for $15. When we got it home though, it didn’t fit in our tree stand. So back out we went to return the stand to the same store we had visited this morning for groceries. I hate return trips on the same day! We bought a new tree stand, got it home, put the tree up and realized, holy shit, it’s crooked as hell! The whole trunk, from base to top, is a complete bow. We had to stick the trunk base in at a severe angle just to get the top to point toward the ceiling.

But it’s up! We’re letting it dry out a little (all that rain earlier soaked it) before we decorate. With Christmas music of course. This is a fun time of year.

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