Happy Holidays from our Brick and Mortar (or Wood and Plaster, Whatever)

Every year when we're home in Portland for the holidays, we wait until our daughter and her husband arrive from New York and then we all head out to get our tree at Zurbrugg Christmas Tree Farm on Old Germantown Road. It's become a tradition…all of us slogging through the muddy, hilly terrain in search of the perfect tree, fake-arguing over which one is the most perfectest. When my mom comes with us, she points out every cute, scraggly (sad) little Charlie Brown tree that she pretends to think we should rescue (meaning: cut down, bring home, and hang an ornament on it). When she doesn't come with us, someone becomes her proxy and does the same. 

There was a break in the rain as we found our tree yesterday. We still slogged through a lot of mud, but that's par for the course this time of year. We found our perfect tree pretty quickly without much banter. (I think the cold wind helped us along.) Kevin cut it down and we hoisted it up on top of the truck, tied it down, and headed for home.

Here it is all decorated and sparkly in our living room:

Here's a photo of the other end of the living room (with better white balance):

So you see…this is why we like coming home sometimes. We'll have twelve people here for dinner on Christmas and our house works way better than our Airstream would (not) for entertaining family and friends in the winter.

Also, here's one of our many, many non-traditional holiday decorations — the headless barbie wreath: