on the first date of christmas...

...my true love gave to me, a giant Christmas tree!

After pinning a ridiculous number of Christmas ideas over the past few weeks on Pinterest I decided it was time to actually sift through them and pick a few things to make happen this Christmas season. One of my favorites was this post over at Dream Home DIY about the 12 Dates of Christmas.  Last year I did a variation of the 12 Days of Christmas & gave the boy little presents every day, so this seemed like a fun way to step it up (and of course spend some quality time together).  Since we were already planning on heading out to the tree farm this past Sunday for our 2nd annual tree hunt it seemed like perfect timing for Christmas Date #1:

Brian & I packed up the car with our blanket and some straps to tie the tree down (we were prepared this time) and headed out to our favorite little Christmas tree farm, Tinsel Time.  We ended up at this place last year and loved the fact that it's family owned by the sweetest couple.  If you're in the Houston area it's well worth the drive out to New Caney!

It was a gorgeous day out (unlike the rainy mess we encountered last year), so we enjoyed taking our time and looking for the perfect tree.  I fell in love with a giant one that Brian had to talk me out of completely veto by reminding me how we could barely get our tree into the house last year.  After some debate, we finally settled on this handsome guy and got right to the business of chopping him down.

If you've never cut down a tree before let me tell you, it's hard work!  As you can see, we were pretty proud of our job.

We hopped on a sleigh ride to take our tree back up to the front of the farm, and they put it in the netter.  And then it got stuck.  Very stuck.  A grown man sitting on the table while three other people tried to pull the tree through stuck.  It didn't budge, so the owner engaged in what he called some "redneck engineering" and hooked the tree up to his four-wheeler.  I've got to hand it to him. I wasn't convinced it was going to work, but on the second try the tree came sliding right out.  Well, color me impressed sir.  Many thank yous for their extra effort later, we tied the tree up and hit the road.

Not even 30 minutes down the road, the tree started bumping and jumping all over the top of the car.  I'm pretty sure a 10 foot tree flying off our car and bouncing onto the highway wouldn't have been a good thing, so we pulled over to secure it better.  Safely home, we hauled the big guy up the stairs.  Thankfully we remembered the lessons learned from last year and there were no broken picture frames or giant scratches on the bathroom wall.  I think it's safe to say that Christmas Date #1 was a success!

Our tree is now safely up and in our living room, anxiously awaiting Christmas Date #2 (my most favorite of them all), decorating the tree!  Counting down to Friday!