holiday cheer

what a splendid day we had! we decided to take a drive up the blackfoot river to find christmas trees, montana style. my childhood memories of getting a tree involved going to big corner lots, probably in shorts and a tee shirt, and finding the best tree, spending oodles of money on it, and then returning to our house to decorate. hilary and i loved to take all of our special ornaments our of the christmas box- we had the peanuts gang and hello kitty and my melody and all sorts of other fairly dated ceramic pieces. we also had the oh so fabulous ones we made in school with our school pictures on them. i remember around adolescence never wanting the ornament that i made in girl scouts in the fourth grade to go up on the tree because that was the year i had really dorky pink rimmed glasses and a god awful bowl cut. vanity even made it's way to the xmas tree! these memories are so strong and so vivid, that i never really imagined creating my own. my childhood experience was just so very different to the kind of experience i had today, it's funny to think i was essentially doing the same thing - honoring the season and welcoming tradition.

so we headed up in bobby and joellen's family van, stopped on some little road, and began to amble about in the crunchy snow, looking for the perfect tree. jeff found ours, the sunlight was shining on it just so, and it called our name. it was then that i realized i had never really used a saw. so i pulled eliana out of the ergo, handed her to her papa, grabbed the saw and had the honor of chopping our sweet little tree down (so sorry tree!). we then hauled all our goods back into town and spent the rest of the day together, decorating, and generally enjoying this lovely season. eliana loves her tree and while we don't have much in the way of decorations, it is simply perfect as is! as i type this, jeff and eliana are asleep, and all the lights are out except for the colored little twinkly lights on the tree. the conical tree shape is reflected in the front window of our house and i feel so cozy and filled with good feelings. i imagine that as people drive by our little casita, they'll see the tree in the window and smile, thinking of the sweet family inside. i'm even listening to sarah mclaughlin sing 'silent night'. "sleep in heavenly peace" has never rung so true.