Black Friday Christmas Tree Hunting

This year we bought our Christmas Tree permit online on the recreation.gov site which made things quick and easy. The only snag was printing the permit, which for us requires a visit to the library to use their printer. Normally this is no big deal, but this time we ran into some IT trouble. Nothing major, but it did take a few minutes longer than normal. At last, it printed and we were set! Typically we've waited till December to head to the hills to find a tree. Last year was our earliest excursion yet (before Thanksgiving!) but that was because wanted to beat the storm (which was a good call because wow did it snow!). This year we figured we had nothing but time, so why not? So Friday morning we packed up the kids and the snow clothes and the saw (we forgot it our first year hunting in Evanston!) and headed to Evanston and beyond to Christmas Meadows to find us our perfect Christmas tree.

Since we've never hunted on the day after Thanksgiving, we had no idea the crowds of hunters that are out and about on Black Friday. We normally see one or two, maybe a handful of folks on the roads, but this year was BUSY! We even had to stop for a (masked) ranger to give us directions going in and to check our permit coming back out. Luckily the forest was full of good subalpine firs and we snagged and bagged a great little tree. Welcome to the family, Firneas!

Glad we brought our boots - the snow was probably
a foot deep (but we have nothing at home, so we almost
forgot!).

It was a beautiful bluebird day tromping
through the woods.

Here's the one!

Awww...

I wasn't so sure about setting it up and decorating right away, but Callie begged (and begged) to decorate it that day . . .  so we did. It is so peaceful to sit in the glow of the Christmas tree in the evening or early morning while it's quiet and dark. I guess we really did need a little Christmas . . . right this very minute. ;)

Super blur ornament sharing.

Gotta include the TV fireplace for events
such as this!