not like you see in the movies

Last year, we discovered that even in the humid, sandy Lowcountry there are Christmas tree farms. The kind of places that let you roam around until you find the perfect tree, cut it down yourself and haul it home. For some reason, I just figured those only existed up north, or in the mountains or Colorado or something like that.....but, turns out SC has several of them, and a couple within decent driving distance for us. So we went, had a blast, and determined that this was what we wanted to do every year from now on. So much more like the "traditional Christmas" that you read about, see in movies, etc.

Fast forward about 365 days, and it's time for the 2nd annual family-trek-to-the-tree-farm. Except this time, it's already been pouring rain for 24 hours, and there's no end in sight. But looking at the family calendar of the next few weeks showed absolutely NO other day to do this, and we're used to getting the tree up on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so off we went at about 1 pm. The boys were in their old sneakers, we had an umbrella in the van somewhere.......I think......What could go wrong?

How about everything? That tree farm should have advertised itself as "tree bog", I kid you not. Practically every square foot of land was underwater, puddles as far as the eye can see, and any "land" you did see turned out to be more like mud or quicksand once you stepped on it. We tried it, and within the first 2 minutes the boys and I had soaking wet shoes and muddy pants legs. Yuck! I gave up and waded back to stand next to the car in a relatively dry spot. K put E on his shoulders, and A followed behind as they pushed on into the plot of trees. K had to shout to me "do you like this one? What about that one? Doesn't it seem lopsided?" etc until we finally settled on one. I persuaded the boys to make their way back through the puddles to the car, then I took their disgusting shoes off. Eww, and they were nasty. They were each sitting sideways in their carseats, feet sticking out of the car door so I could take off socks too, which were dripping wet. And you can imagine that there was no way for me to hold that elusive umbrella, so I was getting wetter by the second. Finally, I got into the driver's seat, took my own shoes off and knocked them against the outside of the car door in a futile attempt to get mud off.

Whew, closed the car door and we were safe. Not dry yet, but safe from further drenching. Until K came to the door and reminded me I needed to write the check to pay for the damn tree.........I'm not even sure the check will be accepted by their bank, based on how wet it was by the time I got finished. Is there a a maximum on water droplets per square inch? I think we passed it.

Can I just say that today was NOT that idyllic, beautiful, traditional Christmas family outing? The tree's up, it's dry, it's decorated and it is truly pretty. Maybe one of our prettiest ever. But the process? Not something I want to repeat. Next year, I'm checking the weather forecast before we decide where to buy the tree.