Thursday, December 18, 2008

A Griswold Family Christmas

Nik's always said the Paulitz's could stand in for National Lampoons Christmas. Evidenced by my dad's love of gigantic trees. The bigger the better. Its become so expected that a normal size tree is a disappointment. We went up with my dad, Carrie, and Scott to Fourth of July Pass the first weekend of the month to cut down a tree. It was so warm it almost felt like cheating. Usually when we would go get a tree it was freezing and there was too much snow to walk (I'm sure there is now). Instead it was almost warm and muddy. The kids had a great time tromping through the mud and climbing the hills searching for the perfect tree. I was trying to get a shot of how truly ridiculous my dad's car looked with the trees on top. But I couldn't capture the essence of it. The trees stuck off of every edge of the car. Every time I looked in my rearview mirror on the way home I started to laugh. Somehow the sight of the Vue with trees billowing in the wind off the sides never ceased being funny. In his defense only two of them are for him (my parents have taken to having 2 trees in the living room for a "forest" look). The third is Carrie and Scotts. I haven't seen the trees in the house yet but I'm told I won't be disappointed. I've always set the standard by the year the furniture had to be in the kitchen because the tree was too full. Apparantly it took dad a while to figure out how to get furniture and the tree in the living room so we can sit on Christmas. He says "6 people fit if they really like each other, 4 if they don't."

The girls were pretty good little helpers. They tried to help carry everything. Carrie and I cut a bunch of cedar branches and the girls gathered them up for us. Greggers mostly played in the mud and we left Connor with Grandma. We thought climbing hills with the kids would be too hard to take the baby, but they were actually little troopers.

Upon closer inspection this was deemed too small for dad, but just right for Carrie.



Dave and the girls ready to cut down the winner. True to form I choose a tree that had to have 4 feet cut off to fit in our apartment. I guess its genetic.




Scott, Carrie, and Dad. The mighty tree hunters. We bring saws not station wagons.