Being (un)authentic

Okay so I skipped the tree shopping story. It's inevitable, year after year we flip flop between cutting down our own or buying a pre-cut. Maybe it's because we live in the Northeast, but there seems to be this underlying sense that if we all hop in the truck, drive 30 miles to a tree farm, cut down our tree and haul it home, we are somehow more "authentic" than those who pull up to the roadside stand, pay $30 and tie the beauty on the roof. Last year we did the authentic route (as we do pretty much every other year); we went out as a family, I took pictures, we drank hot cocoa while they wrapped up our tree...it was angelic...if you could over look the kids complaining the minute we got out of the car because they were cold and we couldn't find a straight tree without gaping holes to safe our life. Cooper had to pee (thank goodness Duncan was still in diapers), we had to drill our own hole in the bottom once we got it home because the "authentic" guys don't have that fancy machine. We never were sure if our drilling was off or if the trunk was just crooked to start with? So anyway, when the discussion came up this year I asked the boys what they wanted to do...Cooper said "mom, can we just GO, PICK IT OUT and BE DONE WITH IT"? And so we did...off to Tebb's we went, $36 and she is perfect. And we didn't even have to get out of the car long enough to catch a chill. Stay tuned for next year when we will forget how miserable it was and feel the need to once again be authentic.