Christmas Tree Hunt 2018!

Near the end of a cold November, Mama’s whole side of the family came with us to Hunter Farms, most of us planning to get a beautiful Christmas tree! Before we went to the bustling farm, Dodie, Unka Cheese, chubby baby Styrkur, Nonnie, Poppie and my whole family got together for woodfired pizza in a restaurant nearby. Clad in boots and coats and full from hot, cheesy pizza, we left to get a tree. The previous year, thanks to his friends, impressionable Tuff

had picked up the notion that Santa would be the one putting presents under our tree on Christmas Eve. We don’t believe in  Santa, and so Mama dutifully told a horror-struck Tuff that Santa Claus was, in reality, a nice man that died many years ago. Any time our confident little Tuff mentioned Santa coming after that, we would gently remind him that old St. Nick had died. Now imagine his surprise when he sees lazy, round Santa Claus in the flesh sitting right in front of him! So our bold little Tuff marched right up to the wooden chair and the fat man in it

and exclaimed, “What! Santa! My Mama said you were dead!”, to which poor Santa muttered, “Oh really now,” and handed him a small striped candy cane. After that, we left the busy barn and rejoined the rest of our big, chattering family to get on the tractor ride. We almost filled up one of the two crowded, wooden wagons where we sang Christmas carols happily until the last stop. A few of us ventured to drink Uncle Kookie's dark chocolate sludge that we thought was hot cocoa but turned out to be drinking chocolate.

Then we went to look for the three best-looking Christmas trees there were; one for Dodie’s family, one for Buggy’s family and one for us. Every year frugal Nonnie and Poppie use a fake tree, but like to come along for the excitement. As we went trudging through the mud with baby Swiggy in his cousin’s stroller and our aunts loaded with diaper bags, everyone searched for the fullest, greenest trees they could find. We ended up finding our short, stubby tree before the rest of the family, and when everyone was done headed to the quaint, little lodge for delicious cocoa and rounds of knit checkers on a stump. By the time our tree was shaken, bound and loaded up behind our big white van, everyone was ready to go. We all packed up and headed home, and that was the end of our 2018 Christmas tree hunt!