Fa la la la la, la la la CHRISTMAS.
This past weekend Mike and I went Christmas tree hunting with our pals Liz and Dave. We jingled all the way to Grafton, MA to pick out the most perfect Christmas trees at Highfield’s Farm, and throughout the course of the day, no less than four Christmas miracles occurred.
Christmas Miracle Number One: When L&D picked us up in the morning, it was rainy and gray and I was being a Debbie Downer because I believe that you CAN’T chop down a Christmas tree in the rain. This is Christmas Law #2, closely related to my other irrational belief that it’s not Christmas if there isn’t snow on the ground (you know you grew up in upstate NY when…) But somehow, miracle of miracles, as we pulled into the Christmas tree farm it started snowing huge, fat, fluffy, stick-to-the-ground flakes. Walkin’ in a winter wonderlaaaand…!
Christmas Miracle Number Two: Mike and I found a tree we agreed on.
(You should know that growing up, my family got a normal 6 1/2 foot tree and Mike’s family got a monster 11 foot tree. So we settled on [what appeared to be] 8 feet.)
Tiiiiimberrrr!
Christmas Miracle Number Three: Let’s do some math here: one car, two trees, four people, seventy five feet of rope, zero roof rack. How did we expect to get these trees home, you ask??? Brains and brawn, people. Brains and brawn.
While Liz and I scurried away to the farm’s cute little log cabin to get some hot cider, Mike and Dave worked on tying down the trees. When we returned to the car they had successfully tied one tree to the roof. We all high-fived and moved on to the second tree only to realize….our genius men had tied half the doors shut.
At least the tree was secure?
We managed to attach the second tree (using the “wrap the entire car in rope” approach), and headed on our merry way. While driving back through Boston we were so delighted that people were pointing at our car and smiling; we thought we were spreading so much Christmas joy!
And then we pulled into the driveway. And the trees were precariously perched DIAGONALLY across the car.
But we still had both, AND they didn’t fall off while we sped down I-90! Fa la la la la, la la la…miracle.
Christmas Miracle Number Four: After praising Santa and his reindeer for helping our trees miraculously make it home, Mike and I hopped in our elevator with the cute and perfectly-apartment-sized tree.
And then we brought it into our apartment. And it was two feet too tall. And four feet too wide.
(Dear landlord, please don’t check our ceiling for tree sap scratches. And if you do…sooowwwwwyyyy.)
Though buying a saw to chop two feet off of the bottom of the tree inside our apartment can hardly be considered a Christmas miracle, the fact that we managed to rearrange our living room furniture to fit a two-sizes-too-big tree certainly is.
It’s a woooonderful feeling, feel the love [and the tree] in the room from the floor to the ceilin’ 
Last weekend I got to tag along on Mike’s firm’s fall outing in Meredith, NH. We had the cutest room with the cutest little balcony for watching the sunrise over the lake, found a lunch place with deeeelicious butternut squash-apple-bacon bisque, and spent Saturday afternoon driving around looking for all the best fall photo ops (covered bridge and pumpkin farm included). We also managed to snag some cider donuts straight from the fryer and make friends with a giant pig named Munchkin. All in all another perfect fall weekend!
