Every year we get our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.
I am not a go-to-a-Christmas-tree-farm-and-cut-down-your-own-tree kind of girl.
Back when the kids were younger I just couldn’t imagine doing something like that with all the kids, and now we have an established tradition.
There is a grocery store here in Connecticut called Stew Leonard’s.
It began as one small dairy store back in the sixties, and now it’s not only the world’s largest dairy store, but a pretty cool grocery store. And now there are a few of them in CT and New York.
We live just a couple miles from Stew’s, and as soon as Halloween is over, they go into Christmas mode. They have trees and a Christmas shop and Santa is there.
We started going there about six years ago, and I wouldn’t really think about going anywhere else.
They make getting a tree super easy, and the kids love going there, checking out the Christmas tree, walking through the store, and then getting dinner.
They have tons of trees, it’s super organized, and as soon as you walk in someone comes to help you out.
I have no idea what the heck Number 6 is doing here.
Once you get your tree, they have a machine they pull it through that wraps it up in a net in like two seconds.
Then they give you a tag, and when you are ready to go home, you drive around back and they load it/tie it/whatever onto your car for you. And you aren’t allowed to tip them.
It’s pretty awesome, and there is no dragging of any trees anywhere.
Which is fine if you are into that sort of thing.
But I’m not.
Then they have a big Christmas Shop with all sorts of decorations and accessories and other stuff.
We don’t usually buy decorations there, but we check everything out.
Then we go into the ornament room.
They have tons of ornaments.
Each of the kids got to pick out an ornament tonight, and Number 6 was pretty psyched about that.
This year they set a little area up out in the Christmas shop to take pictures.
I got a good one.
After we go through the Christmas Shop, we go inside to see Santa.
He’s basically the perfect Santa and has been there every year since we started going there.
Then we take a walk through the store.
The kids love the decorations there.
They have some other cute things there that kids love, like Clover the Cow.
You pull on a rope and she moos.
We make our way through the store until we get to the prepared food.
By Saturday, everyone has kind of had enough leftovers from Thanksgiving and I don’t really want to cook anything, so we get ourselves some dinner.
Then we pile back in the car with our food, head home and eat.
And that is our Christmas Tree Tradition.
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