Quest for the Perfect Christmas Tree

     Today is the infamous Black Friday.  No shopping going on here. Instead we bundled up and headed into the Caribou-Targhee National Forest for our first experience with cutting down our very own Christmas tree!

The trail. The picture does not do justice to how steep it was.

      The trail leading up the mountain was crazy steep and the ground was frozen.  We did our best to make some distance between us and the parking area, but it wasn't long before the cold, thin air was burning our lungs and the kids were slipping on the path so my husband and the older boys took a detour to the closest tree that would meet our height restriction while I stood with the younger three kids on the trail.

Canon and Ephraim on the mountainside.

Hickory.

John with the winning tree!

     If getting up the hill was tough, getting back down to the van was down right treacherous. I had Nicola wrapped against the front side of me so she could be bundled up in my coat, but Doyle wanted to hold my hand and I was terrified that he was going to pull the baby and me down the side of the mountain, so John ended up taking him down while I stayed with the tree, the axe, and the shotgun.

John and the kids headed back to the van.

Tree loaded up on the van.

     We had to stop a few times on the way home to tighten the tree down because it kept wanting to shift around, but eventually we made it home and quickly set to work getting it all trimmed with big cool white bulbs and blue and silver ornaments.

Doyle and Hickory in front of the tree.

I got our ornaments at Wal-Mart and the cool spiral hooks I got at Big Lots. Aren't they pretty?

Say cheese!

       How did you spend your Black Friday? Were you part of the hoards of crazy shoppers? Did you put up your tree? Did you sleep off the turkey hangover??