Don't Mess with Us!

We got our Christmas tree today. If you are picturing an idyllic family outing, you haven't got it quite right.

We started this morning by picking up a couple of Boxes of Joe and heading to Hampton to tailgate at a tree farm with Becky, Yaka, the girls, and a few of their friends. We got there and were surprised and happy to see Nana there, too! Jill, Peter, and their cousins climbed into the back of Yaka's truck with cups full of potato chips and were happy there for about 5 minutes.

Then Peter demanded to get out, and weaved through the happy crowd at top speed. I couldn't keep up with him without knocking people over. We left after about 30 minutes and the kids were psychotically disappointed to leave their cousins, and maybe more disappointed to leave without a tree.

Miraculously, both children were tear free 10 minutes after driving away from the party. We assured Jill that we WOULD get our tree today, either now or after Peter's nap. Peter fell asleep in the car, just minutes from our destination. Bryan and I took turns hanging in the car with him, while the other did our shopping and tree scouting work with Jill.

When Peter woke up, we joined Jill and Bryan in the Home Depot tree lot. We were deciding between two trees, and had mostly decided against the larger one, when another couple picked it up and examined it. Jill was indignant and implored me, "Mom! That was ours!" I said, "That's OK, honey. There are lots of trees and that one was a little too big anyway." The woman overheard us and asked, very nicely, ready to relinquish it, "Was that your tree?" I assured her it was not just as Peter yelled angrily from the shopping cart, "THAT WAS OURS!"

There is some fight in these kids. I always knew it, but now it seems the public should be on lookout too! How did it turn out? The nice couple laughed at Peter and bought the giant tree, and we got a very lovely smaller one.