It's beginning to look...

Holiday spirit has been in short supply in our house this year. Maybe because the people in this house whose ages begin with a 1 outnumber all others. Or maybe because we didn't have an snow until Saturday. Or maybe because my own lack of enthusiasm has rubbed off on everyone else. Or maybe it was just that we hadn't done much holiday-ing yet. This weekend we set about jump-starting the household festivities.



M had drama and work all day Saturday and Sunday morning, so we had to wait to get the tree. In the meantime, E and Z and I got the house clean and ready. I made some peppermint bark, using roughly this recipe (I neglected the cream in the chocolate layer, used a blender rather than rolling pin to pulverize the cookies, and used peppermint extract in lieu of the toothpaste extract that's been haunting my cabinet for years).




E and Z and I played out in the new snow a bit Sunday morning (more on that tomorrow).



When M got home, we went out on our 16th Annual Family Christmas Tree Hunting Expedition. Like I said, the holiday spirit, it is weak in this house, and two young people needed coaxing even to get out and look for a tree.

Once outside, though, their enthusiasm increased.

As did their boisterousness (perhaps that was the problem all along—to much time inside in front of screens, not enough outside wrassling in the snow).



C has always lobbied for cutting down a great big tree and taking home just the top 8 feet. I've argued against this plan, because it means taking down a much older, more mature tree, which has put a lot more years into sequestering carbon and plays an important role in shade and habitat.

But as the years go by, all the trees in our christmas tree forest get taller, and I get more amenable to taking the top of a tall tree, because they're both more compact and dense (relative to other forest-grown trees, that is). So the top of a big tree it was.



It ended up being a little on the skinny side, which means it fits just perfectly in our living room.

And it's so far doing a good job of cranking up the holiday spirit, brining lights and greenery inside our home.