I love this time of year, my two favorite holidays one right after the other. For my family, the start of our Thanksgiving and Christmas starts with tagging our tree. I love Thanksgiving and wish people would decorate and celebrate the coming of Thanksgiving more than they do. It annoys me that the celebration and marketing of Christmas starts well before Thanksgiving. With that said, it’s funny that for me, the start of the Thanksgiving holiday is getting together with my family to go and tag our Christmas tree. It may be hypocritical but meh, I love it just the same. Trust me, we are all in Thanksgiving mode until December hits.
Our beginning of Christmas Tradition
The four of us (me, my wife and my kids) met up with my sister and her family as well as my parents and drove out to the same Christmas tree farm we have been going to for the last couple of years. It’s a great little family owned farm with many charms of it’s own. The tagging is self service, you grab a tag, find a tree that you like and tag it as yours. You don’t have to pay for the tree until you come back and pick it up. When you do decide to go back and claim your tree, they cut it fresh, shake the loose needles off of it, wrap it up and help you load it into your car. All for about $35 – $50 depending on the tree you pick and the size. It’s a little more than we would pay if we went down to one of local pre-cut parking lot stands but the tradition of going and picking out our tree means much more to me than the extra $5 we spend.
After we tag our tree, we had over to a restaurant called Snuzzles. It’s in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t even have a sign on the outside but the food, atmosphere and price is great. At first it seems a little out of place as the whole thing looks like something you would find at a ski resort but the people are friendly and the food can’t be beat for the price.
It’s a day I look forward to every year and this year it did not disappoint. I am part owner of an Ecommerce company and the next 4 – 6 weeks are going to be insane. As our business grows, it’s tougher and tougher for me to enjoy the holidays. I think that is why I cherish days like today more than I ever had before.
How do you kick off the christmas season? Where do you get your tree?