The Bird and The Tree.
Is it REALLY December? I always feel old asking questions like that, but it seems like October was just a week or so ago, wasn’t it?
Regardless, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with both sides of our family. We hosted my side on Thursday, and then traveled to Brad’s family’s on Friday. Needless to say we were “stuffed”.
Brad and I tackled the turkey again and I gave my first shot at “brining”. I used Pioneer Woman’s recipes from her A Year of Holidays Cookbook. I think a lot of us had Ree Drummond on our “Things to Be Thankful For” list. Her mashed potatoes are a staple at our Thanksgiving feasts, and we pretty much fill up all day on sampling them. (I make them a day ahead and then reheat them in the crockpot to make Turkey Day prep a little easier.)
It’s so wonderful having our home full of family and love.
On Sunday Brad took me up on my little adventure in trying a real tree this year. As a girl in the boys class says, “Fake tree. Fake Christmas.”
But this is our real “Living Christmas Tree” – always colorful!
So far it’s still alive and making our house smell like evergreen wonderland. I don’t know if we’ll ever go back…
How was YOUR Thanksgiving? Are you fed up with the bird? What was your favorite dish?
Have you put your tree up? (Oh wait, I forgot most of America puts it up in October now!) Fake? Real? White Lights? Colored Lights?
Real! They grow them (farm them) here! But we won’t put it up for 2 weeks yet because we leave it up for Ukrainian Christmas. Coloured lights. I loved your LIVE tree-o-boys!
We used to enjoy a live tree we cut down ourselves, then moved to a very low humidity area. I was terrified of fire, so we got a nice artificial tree. Now, I can put it up whenever I want, don’t have to worry about watering it, and Walmart sells little ornament things that make the whole house smell like a fresh tree. This year, I bought a prelit, LED tree that comes with a remote control! I can change the lights from white to color, flashing or not, slow or fast. What a blast!
I think a REAL Christmas is all about our attitudes rather than the type of tree we choose…
I enjoy reading all about your traditions and look forward to seeing the adventures of your darling boys…been following along since they were born! Merry Christmas to your whole family. 🙂
Did you know that England by and large doesn’t do real Christmas trees at all? No farms for hundreds and hundreds of miles. It stinks. So we have to buy one from the base Shopette (like a military 7-11). There is also only one pumpkin patch for hundreds and hundreds of miles! And that’s only because a British farmer finally wised up to the fact that he had thousands of Americans around.
We are blessed to have had a Christmas tree each year of our 58 years of marriage. Our very first one was from a local tree farm, not too big, not many ornaments, and big colored lights. It holds special memories for me. I wish I had photos of each year. We gradually advanced to the artificial type back in the 80’s. The first one was a huge realistic looking one that took up a lot of space. We had it several years and loved it but finally sold it to replace it with a more compact size. No matter the size or shape,it is the lights that bring back the magic! Having the Murray family put the tree up for us and place our old ornaments on so perfectly is a treat for us the past 3 years. I hope it will be a treasured memory for all of them that it is for us.