oh, christmas tree!

one of our stratton christmas traditions we've developed over the past five years is a yearly trip to a tree farm (we've settled on the mockingbird tree farm as our local fave) to choose a tree out in the snowy fields and to then ceremoniously cut it down ourselves. i think our tradition began of necessity when dave and i lived in easton in a condo with a loft, so the ceilings were high. and the only place to find a 12 or 14 foot tree is a tree farm! it's a cool tradition, and scouring and hunting down the "perfect" tree is tons of fun (exceppptt when it's 26 degrees with 10 mile an hour winds...then it's umm, cold)! :)

so today our tree is finally up (we'd have liked it to be up right after thanksgiving, but with that whole flu issue, and then the rain trend we've been seeing on weekends, it has taken us a while), we made it to the little gym almost on time, and heck, i went for it and took the kids grocery shopping after (huge mistake, by the way. market basket is a MADHOUSE apparently at 1:30 on fridays. or is it every day? right. it's every day...).

how about some pictures??

elias was so cold he stopped at every tree pretty much every one nd said "how about this one? this one looks good"

dada takes a saw to it while eli says "you can do it dad. never give up! you're doing great!" hilarious.

and here it is, anxiously awaiting ornamentation. that's going to have to wait a couple days, but...

tell me, what are YOUR christmas traditions?!