The Perfect Christmas Tree...

...is fake and you can buy it at a store! But, what kind of experience do you get with that??? Haha, every year Joel gets a little bit closer to buying that perfect tree in a store, but then he relives his childhood days and we just HAVE to go to the boy scout lot on Highway 31 in Vestavia to get a real tree. It's always really fun and exciting at first, and then all the trees start to look the same and finally, I end up telling Joel to just pick one. He, being the engineer, examines it front and back to make sure that it has just the perfect shape. It usually takes a while! Then, we take it home, get it in our house (I won't discuss the pine needles that get all over the place), and Joel strings it with 12 strands of lights, all the while cussing like a sailor saying he's never doing this again. It's a real pleasure! However, once we get through the lights, the real fun begins. I love going through our ornaments each year and thinking back on our 5 years of marriage, new home, new baby, and of course, the real meaning of Christmas. For some reason, all the stress of getting the tree up goes away at this point, and in the end, we do end up with our perfect Christmas tree (and boy does it smell GOOD!!!).

With all that said, last Friday afternoon, we took Hudson to the tree lot to find our tree.

He was pretty excited to run free up and down the rows of trees. There were "tees, tees" everywhere!

We even did a little dancing...

And finally, here is the finished (well almost finished--need a tree topper!) Christmas tree. It's just beautiful. I love how warm and cozy our house feels at Christmas time. It just makes me happy!

Now, if I could just get those presents bought and wrapped, I'd be doing good!