Butterball - Part 1!

 This weekend the Hanks Family became a real family when they bought a real Christmas tree!



We started our hunt at the Smith's grocery store across the street. The pickings were slim... all of 4 trees left. Cars were pulling out left and right with trees on their roofs. We asked a lady staking claim on a tree if there was any place else near that sold trees. She pointed us in the direction of Baum's Christmas Trees... a man who apparently chopped down a whole forest and put them in his front yard.

Baum's was hard to miss once you found the right street in the neighborhood. There were trees, flocked and naked, three front-yards wide! We wandered up and down the rows looking through trees that were tall, short, and mostly thin. Then... we found one. A thick, round, ball of a tree. As we pulled it out ol' Baum himself suddenly appears, hands in his pockets, and says "Yup, that's a butterball right there". We were sold. I pretended to look around a little more, to be sure, but we knew Butterball was ours. A few more looks, a little more falling in love, and soon Butterball was up on our car roof coming home.

We were traveling home as a real family, Christmas tree tied to the roof and all. People were pointing and smiling, saying "Look! They got a Christmas tree!" (Well, according to us at least). With Dan's ingenuity and manly strength we got Butterball trimmed and up in the stand. I'm a little OCD when it comes to lights, so I put those up. (Years of following your Father around a Christmas tree for 45 minutes, holding the lights while he entwined them perfectly, will do that to you). But our tree sure looks good...thanks Dad! Dan even let me put up colored lights (he's always had white). We agreed to try those next year.

It was the perfect setting to eat broccolli cheese soup in breadbowls (Dan's wonderful idea) before heading up to the cabin with friends for hot chocolate, s'mores, and a movie.

And in the end...we came home to a twinkling Christmas tree.

Mmmmm!