Turkey Makes People Grumpy, or Attack of the Angry Tree

Either that or I've just been hormonal for the last week. I'm guessing that is probably the REAL explanation. But the turkey excuse works for me, it's dead so it doesn't mind taking the blame. So Thanksgiving came and went and it was OK but I'd rather not talk about it. I cooked, we ate and there were leftovers. Our day after Thanksgiving family tradition is going and getting a Christmas tree. In Texas this involved a trip to Wal-mart or Kroger, followed by a lot of shaking, bug spray, and a hose, for the tree that is. This year we were able to continue the *original* tradition and go cut down our own tree, and it only cost $8 not $25-$75 (depending on how many bugs you want included on the tree.) Now there is something I must explain, I have a thing with Christmas trees. I have two. One is a fake fiber optic sparkly tree. The other must be real. I grew up under the false impression that I was allergic to pine trees in the house so my family had to have the short ugly fleece snow covered, fake tree. Which now, when I see it, brings back some nice fluffy feelings of carefree Christmases past. That is beside the point. I had a friend whose mother had 2 Christmas trees. The one downstairs in the family room was covered in the ornaments that the kids brought home from school or church, and popcorn strands or paper chains, etc. The OTHER tree was upstairs and decorated elegantly with the *no touchy* sort of ornaments. I thought this particular set up was brilliant and from that day forth I decided that one of my life long goals was to have two Christmas trees. And in the year 2002 I got my wish, and it has been that way ever since. (I'm easy to please what can I say) Anyway, where was I... Oh yes, this year we got to go up to the Big Horns and cut our own, no bugs included, they all got cold and took off. Now the interesting thing about going up to this particular mountain range from where we live is that there's a lot of up. For example, the conversation in the car went something like this "Oh look! There's a nice tree, did anyone bring the climbing gear? No? well lets drive on and see if we find a more level spot so we don't have to repel back to the car." Drive on we did. Now seeing that the majority of the Big Horn mountain range is available to Christmas tree cutting our options seemed pretty open. Had we been here three or four kids ago, this process could have taken hours, but my expectations have wained a bit and so I saw a decent spot that looked safe enough and we stopped. So here comes the exciting part. We then piled out of the suburban all 9 of us and the dog. I had the baby in the snuggli, she's 13 months old, snuggli's aren't meant for 13 month 22lb (give or take a pound) babies. So I guess it would be better said that I had the baby crammed into the snuggli. Sariah had Jacob. Spencer had the dog. Jason had the saw and Joey who wanted to be carried. And I think that Gabe and Caleb we're close on Sariah's trail. We followed a little closed road just a short way and came to a cattle guard. Now honest to goodness, half of my kids have never seen let alone crossed a cattle guard. That really didn't seem to be a huge deal unless you know that the dog hadn't had much, if any, experience with one either. (He has a past life so I don't know what he did before we got him) Anyway Spencer was the first one to the guard. I suggested that the dog would be fine crossing, so to proceed. I guess he went a little fast because halfway across, the dog freaked out, lost his footing and one of his back legs slipped through the grate. He got across, but was limping on the other side. "GREAT, " I thought, "we broke the dog." Jason crossed picked the dog up, (which is probably what we should have done in the first place.) Crossed back over and carried the dog to the car. He (the dog) was fine. Turns out he just scratched up the inside of his leg. Meanwhile back at the cattle guard, Jacob had figured out how to cross on all fours, hands and feet. It wasn't good enough to go just once he had to go over at least 3 or 4 times. Spencer learned that his feet are big enough to stretch across two rungs, so he went across 3 or 4 times as well, to his credit, one time was carrying Joey. Caleb and Gabe we're fine. And Sariah carried the saw. While we waited on the other side for Dad to return, I sent Spencer up the side of the mountain to check out potential victims, I mean trees. When Jason got back, we all headed up. It only took three times up and down to different spots to find the almost *perfect* tree. When I wrote earlier about my expectations, this is part of the change, I'm just not as picky anymore. Our tree turned out to be the first one I sent Spencer to check out. So we agreed, Jason sawed, we conquered. And then we headed down the mountain, across the cattle guard that bit the dog, to the car to have our leftover Thanksgiving lunch while dad tied the tree to the top. Which, after 10 years of practice, he has gotten quite efficient at doing. So we ate lunch, peed in the trees and on rocks (it's great having so many boys) and headed back home to decorate our trophy...
to be continued...