The things we do in the name of tradition.....
Since we'll be in Hawaii for Christmas this year, I was all ready to forgo a Christmas tree. Why bother when we'd only get to see it for 3 weeks? Then Jason pointed out that, while Hawaii was going to be fun, it might not feel very Christmasy to celebrate in the sand and sun. That got me thinking a little. And then I worked in Evan's preschool class last week and the question of the day was "Who has a Christmas tree up in their house?" and then I felt sad about not habing a tree. So we decided that we'd have to get a tree THIS WEEKEND, and no later. Of course, Saturday dawned, very cold and with the promise of some wintery precipitation. But since Saturday was THE DAY, we headed out. We decided not to go to our favorite Christmas tree farm, since it is an hour and a half away and tried one a little closer to home -- supposedly only 38 minutes away.
When we left, it was just starting to snow, but we were prepared. We had double layers of clothings, hats, scarfs, gloves, EXTRA gloves and a jug of cocoa. As we got out of town and toward the country, the snow turned to freezing rain. We had to slow waaaayyyy down. It took us over an hour to get to the farm. When we got there, it was still dropping ice from the heavens and oh, it was cold, but, TRADITION!!! Family tradition insisted that we cut down our own tree, so we got on the hay ride, sitting on a thick layer of ice, and were dropped off in a field and trudged through the frozen grass, Evan sobbing, and freezing, Brendan in my arms, his head buried in my chest, Emily and Dani, being fairly good sports, but wimpering some, scouting out the trees. Somehow we ended up in a field of trees the at were very short, so we just found the tallest one, stood the kids in front of it, snapped a couple of pictures -- Brendan wouldn't look at the camera, the kids were all making weird faces and the lens kept getting hit by ice pellets. You expect to see snow in the pictures, right? Seriously, everything in these pictures, including US, is coated with ice. The kids and I told Jason "Cut that one down, we'll meet you back at the warming hut!" and ran for it!
At the warming hut, we had some cookies and cocoa and met a rather scraggly Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh that were there for our....uh... meeting pleasure, while the tree dudes strapped the tree to our car.
The one other tree shopper in the warming hut told us that they had some from the general direction of our town on the freeway and that it wasn't too bad, so we took the freeway home, rather than the country roads we had come by to begin with. We saw at least 7 cars that had slid off the road, one of which had come to rest upside down on its roof! It took us a good hour to get home, but we made it, safely and in 6 pieces.
Once home, I got out of the car to see if Jason could clear the garage door with the tree on the top of the car and discovered the driveway was a solid sheet of ice. I slipped and slid a little as I got out, but as I got my balance I was still a little disoriented for a minute. Jason pointed out why. "Kim? Um.... the car is sliding backwards!" Indeed, the car was slowly sliding backwards down the driveway! J managed to stop the sliding, but since we could not clear the garage with the tree on the car, we had to take each kid out and skate them across the driveway to get them into the house. When we could get a good look at the car, we found the whole darn thing covered with a thick 1/4 in layer of ice!
Someday we'll tell our grandchildren of how we kept the tradition alive in the great ice storm of 2007. And they'd better feel the same reponsibility to drag their freezing, sobbing children through ice and snow to continue that great tradition of insanity and stubbornness!
When we left, it was just starting to snow, but we were prepared. We had double layers of clothings, hats, scarfs, gloves, EXTRA gloves and a jug of cocoa. As we got out of town and toward the country, the snow turned to freezing rain. We had to slow waaaayyyy down. It took us over an hour to get to the farm. When we got there, it was still dropping ice from the heavens and oh, it was cold, but, TRADITION!!! Family tradition insisted that we cut down our own tree, so we got on the hay ride, sitting on a thick layer of ice, and were dropped off in a field and trudged through the frozen grass, Evan sobbing, and freezing, Brendan in my arms, his head buried in my chest, Emily and Dani, being fairly good sports, but wimpering some, scouting out the trees. Somehow we ended up in a field of trees the at were very short, so we just found the tallest one, stood the kids in front of it, snapped a couple of pictures -- Brendan wouldn't look at the camera, the kids were all making weird faces and the lens kept getting hit by ice pellets. You expect to see snow in the pictures, right? Seriously, everything in these pictures, including US, is coated with ice. The kids and I told Jason "Cut that one down, we'll meet you back at the warming hut!" and ran for it!
At the warming hut, we had some cookies and cocoa and met a rather scraggly Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh that were there for our....uh... meeting pleasure, while the tree dudes strapped the tree to our car.The one other tree shopper in the warming hut told us that they had some from the general direction of our town on the freeway and that it wasn't too bad, so we took the freeway home, rather than the country roads we had come by to begin with. We saw at least 7 cars that had slid off the road, one of which had come to rest upside down on its roof! It took us a good hour to get home, but we made it, safely and in 6 pieces.
Once home, I got out of the car to see if Jason could clear the garage door with the tree on the top of the car and discovered the driveway was a solid sheet of ice. I slipped and slid a little as I got out, but as I got my balance I was still a little disoriented for a minute. Jason pointed out why. "Kim? Um.... the car is sliding backwards!" Indeed, the car was slowly sliding backwards down the driveway! J managed to stop the sliding, but since we could not clear the garage with the tree on the car, we had to take each kid out and skate them across the driveway to get them into the house. When we could get a good look at the car, we found the whole darn thing covered with a thick 1/4 in layer of ice!
Someday we'll tell our grandchildren of how we kept the tradition alive in the great ice storm of 2007. And they'd better feel the same reponsibility to drag their freezing, sobbing children through ice and snow to continue that great tradition of insanity and stubbornness!
posted by kim at
5:49 AM
4 Comments
