Alrighty my blog readers, I have something to confess: Casey and I are Christmas tree snobs! With this year marking Casey and I's first Christmas as married folks, this brings the added pressure of starting our own Christmas traditions. While there are ones we each bring from our own families, we also wanted to start our own for our family. I realize not all traditions begin the first year you're married, but I want to have at least a few for us, so that way we can say years down the road that we started doing them our first Christmas together.
When having the real vs. artificial tree discussion (I had always grown up with real, while Casey had a combination of real and artificial), we cam to the conclusion we wanted a real tree. The perfectly arranged lights and over time the inexpensiveness of an artificial tree was very alluring, but Casey wanted real Christmas tree smell in our house (which I love too!), so real is the route we took. To make this tradition our own, Casey and I wanted to go to a Christmas tree farm and actually cut down our tree, which neither one of us had done. Growing up, we always went to a nursery or somewhere like Home Depot. Saturday morning Casey and I ventured to Old Time Christmas Tree Farm in the Spring area. Going into this, I expected the longest part of this endeavor would be the commute to and from the tree farm. I was wrong. It seemed like there was a couple thousand trees, which at first sight can seem overwhelming, but I was also comforted in the fact that there was so much selection that this would be easy and take no time at all! WRONG!
We agreed beforehand that a 7-8 ft. tree is what we wanted, which was definitely doable. The challenge came in the fact that since this was a taller tree than either of us had ever had that I wanted it to be a little more slender and Casey wanted one that was going to last, not already loosing it's needles, and didn't have any holes in it. All sounds pretty reasonable, but tree after tree we looked at would be missing something one of us didn't like, so on we went to the next one. The funny part was that we both were pretty picky, but neither one of us got frustrated with the other over their pickiness. We walked through many rows of trees, amazed at how snobby we realized we were, but also that we didn't want to settle for just any tree.
Even though hunger was starting to set in (and we all know that me without food in my stomach results in a much crankier version of myself) and feet were getting tired, we pushed forward in our search.
After about 2 HOURS (yes I am ashamed to admit it was at least that long), we finally found a tree we both loved and could see it taking it's residence in the Hixon House! It's a beautiful tree and we both enjoyed spending time with each other walking among nature. It was wonderful to see so many people out there with their families and made me look forward to the years ahead when we can share this tradition with our kiddos.
With each tree, comes my tradition of naming the tree. Sounds weird to some (not to many if you know me well!), but to me it personalizes each tree and the memories associated with it. At my parent's house, I would always name it after an Aggie football player that had a spectacular game against those Texas Longhorns since we usually purchased our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving while I was home from school. With the Aggies being in the SEC now, this complicated things somewhat. What I ended up doing was naming the tree at my parent's house Johnny Everett (after #2 Johnny "Football" Manziel and #29 Deshazor Everett who both had great performances against Alabama and were crucial to the Aggie victory). At the Hixon House, we decided on the name Kevin Sumlin, which was a perfect compromise being that he is the current Aggie coach that used to be the coach at the University of Houston. Kevin Sumlin was decorated Saturday evening and looks beautiful!!! Now I just need to get on my Christmas shopping and get some presents under him!! Have a blessed week from the
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| On the hay ride at Old Time Christmas Tree Farm about to find our tree!!! |
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| My handsome Christmas tree picking out partner |
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| The selection of trees was indeed vast! |
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| We FINALLY found our tree!!!! |
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| Not your typical tree hugger:) |
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| Timber!!!! |
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| Tree is down! |
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| Shaking all the dead pine needles out!! |
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| Binding it up makes it much easier to transport and get inside one's house!! |
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| May I present to you the Hixon House 2012 Christmas Tree, Kevin Sumlin! |
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13
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