our first Real Christmas Tree

This year for Christmas we had so much going on from either work or and our schedules with our girls we did not get everything up for Christmas. Last week as mentioned in this post (Turks and Caicos in December) we also took a trip out of town. That was for our 20th Wedding Anniversary and our fist trip without our girls! Well worth it, but another delay in getting things setup.

As life rolls on you may get to things later than planned. Always keep the plan and always try to execute. If this happens all the time it could be a problem. Do a little self analysis and see how you can improve.

With that, last year we were barely moved in, in time for Christmas. It was just 3 days before Christmas when we got settled… At that time we also promised the girls we would get a real tree. Since my oldest was born, we always used our nice fake tree. This was a new experience for them and exactly what we did to keep our promise. We hopped in the car, hit the local tree lot and brought a Christmas Tree home. Nothing too huge but big enough and real enough.

Fireplace and Christmas tree — The hero image (at the top of the page) uses the Samsung Galaxy S9’s “PRO” camera mode. The image is a little warmer than the image directly above. This image above was taken using the standard point and shoot mode.

For outside Christmas lights, I did not have any time last year. It was also then that we realized we would be the only ones who would see them. I am 100% OK with that, but our focus will be for our family vs. people driving by. I remember, my dad put up lights at their house (which was in the middle of nowhere). He had the driveway lit up like Vegas. I could literally work on my car with that lighting :). You can’t see me as I am writing this, but I am grinning ear to ear thinking of this memory. My friends always gave my dad a hard time but all in jest. It was pretty cool. We did have to buy some additional lights and then my youngest Macy and I worked on putting up our first lights outside. Still some more adjustment to do, and once my other daughter Megan comes home from a movie, we will work on spacing them out more.

I am happy to say that they are up and I think I can work on my car with these bright lights. I hope my dad is able to look down and it puts a smile on his face too.