Tree chopping adventures and Fun Family Traditions

Many years ago our Stake President gave us a book by his brother, Stephen R. Covey. It was something about highly successful families. I thought a highly successful family sounded like a nice idea so I read it. There were lots of good points one in particular kind of struck me - not that it was a new idea or something that sounded foreign or anything I just hadn't really thought about it in such concrete terms. Like I said this was many years ago and I definitely do not remember exact quotes and it is likely my mind has total distorted it over the years but the idea is that you make your home and your family so fun your kids have nothing to rebel against. They don't want to leave you because there isn't anything else out there that is quite as fun. So I decided then and there that would be our family - we would be a perpetual barrel of laughs, with fun going on everywhere - a regular 3 ring circus of delights and good times. Well we were successful at turning our home into a circus whether it is s a a fun one or not that could be debated. But we have tried to inundate our kids with fun. I am more the old fashioned wholesome recreational, simple fun kind of girl. I don't need amusement parks, or movies, or fancy toys to have a good time. Growing up a bike ride or a romp through the forest was great fun. A camping trip or evening at the lake throwing each other off inflatable rafts was what we lived for. As we got a little older, and more independent, a midnight swim in the lake provided the thrill we needed - if we craved a little more of an adrenaline rush we lost the swim suits. But we didn't need speed boats, Disneyland, game boys or a wii to keep us entertained. I don't know where I went wrong because my kids simply don't know how to play without a remote in their hand. Case in point- our Christmas tree.

A few days ago I sat in my parents home feeling a bit sick. We had just finished Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious - definitely worth the sick, bloated, have to undo your top button kind of feeling eating so much is sure to bring. I didn't mean to eat so much. I sat down to dinner with the resolve to enjoy a conservative amount. I carefully served myself conservative portions. I did well at that and then decided just to have a bit more. At that point I would have been fine but I looked up to notice that for the most part my children's plates looked the same as when I had dished them up. My kids aren't very good eaters. I don't understand this at all - it astounds me. How can they not like to eat - is is so wonderful. Anyway I was feeling a little guilty - all that wasted food. I didn't want my Mom to start to wonder if there was something wrong with her cooking so I graciously decided to help them out. I only had the best of intentions in mind. So I started with Rachel. For some reason she likes to be fed- probably because she figured out I hate feeding her. So for every spoon full I put in her mouth- 2 or 3 went into mine. I moved on to Ryan and Anna. Well that is the reason the top button of my jeans didn't get to stay done up as I moved from the table to stretching out on the living room floor waiting for my food to digest enough I dared move.

This is when I started to think about family fun. I made a resolve that no matter how much my kids complained I would prove to them that we could have fun family traditions. I have this thing with creating fun family traditions. I create them my husband endures them and my children dread them. I keep trying hoping someday the rest of my family will see the merits of my efforts. One such tradition is chopping down a Christmas tree.

We've been married for 13 years now. We have had several tree chopping experiences with a varied degree of success. The first Christmas tree we shared as a family Kristin bought us a tree at the Christmas tree lot. It was a wedding gift, we didn't have a tree stand so we had to devise a way to get it up. But it was wonderful, it made me feel like a real family in a real home. The next few years I can't remember what happened we may have just skipped having a tree altogether. Then my parents moved to Soda Springs. Soda Springs is near a national forest where Christmas trees grow so relying on Jeff and Kevin's truck and knowledge of the terrain we headed up to the mountains of the caribou national forest and chopped one down. We got some pretty good trees this way.

My parents didn't aways fare so well. The year my mom had cancer my Dad took matters into his own hands and went after the tree. Apparently they were hard to come by that year at least the ones with branches because he came home with not a whole lot more than a stick with a few needles. My mom tried to decorate it the best she could. She had to resort to perching stuffed animals in its branches to hide all the holes. It was by far the sorriest looking Christmas tree I have ever see.

The year we moved to Spanish Fork we decided to go after our own Christmas tree. I went and bought a Christmas tree permit, it was easy to get and only cost a couple of bucks so I was feeling great as we headed up into the mountains. We hadn't traveled very far when a forest ranger stopped us and asked if we had a permit. I said, "we sure do" and gladly got it out - proud I had remembered to buy one. I shouldn't have been so proud. It was the wrong permit. Turns out we were on national forest land and we had a state tag. So where is the state land we asked. He pointed. 'But there's no trees there" We said. "Yeah - that is why they sell em so cheap" he responded. "Oh", I whispered totally deflated. "Good news is I have one right here I could sell you he said. I brightened. So for a little more than we intended to spend we were once again heading up the mountain looking for the perfect tree. It took a while traipsing through knee deep snow but I found it - the perfect one. I pointed it out to Rick "are you sure" he said his head tilting back so he could see the top, it's pretty tall, he said. "Well we will only take the top 8 feet I said - remember the forest ranger said that was ok. So like the good sport that he is he climbed up into that tree and started sawing. My guess it was at least 30 feet tall. I kept the kids occupied. I started to run out of ways to occupy them so I went to check his progress. He was threw the first few layers of bark but still had a lot more sawing to do. A few hours later he yelled timber and that big monster finally fell. I graciously offered to cut the top off so he could rest his aching shoulder. That didn't last long I was a bit of a novice when it came to sawing so he had to finish the job but we got her done and loaded on top of the car and headed for home. That was the easy part. What we hadn't realized is that big trees have big trunks. While we had bought a Christmas tree stand we didn't get one that would hold our monster. We spent several hours trying to rig it up. Finally we got a big 5 gallon bucket stuck the tree inside filled it with rocks and set it in the living room, we also had to tie it to the ceiling but the tree stood.

The next year I once again decided we needed to keep our tradition and go after a tree. I planned ahead this year and went to the right national forest office. What I didn't know was that those tree permits are so popular you have to stand in line to get one. Well I got there about 1/2 hour after they opened the first day the sold the permits. I waited for over an hour - in the cold snow - with 2 small children. The lady directly ahead of me was the first one to get turned away - "Sorry we are out for the year" they told her. If I would have been 2 people faster we would have had one.

So I reluctantly got another state permit and we headed off to the opposite side of the state hoping to find real trees there. Well after driving for a very long time we came to a forest of types. They had trees - not really the ones people usually get for Christmas but ever greens. So we pulled over. Unfortunately our pink station wagon wasn't equipped with four wheel drive and we had a bit of trouble getting around the forest. We finally parked and searched for a tree. We found one we deemed acceptable and Rick asked for the saw. I had assured him that I remembered to bring it- and I had the only problem was it was the wrong kind of saw. Apparently hack saws aren't for cutting down trees. After a few hours of sawing and shaking and pushing we finally got the tree down and loaded on top of the pink station wagon. We headed for home, unfortunately we must have went over a few too many bumps and holes because we got a flat tire. Rick hoped out and patiently changed it. We headed out a few miles further and we got another flat. This time I could tell Rick was cursing at me under his breath. "what do we do know" I asked in a whisper. We didn't have a cell phone in these days so Rick started off hiking down the road in the middle of nowhere looking for help. He went to a couple peoples' house asking to use the phone. He was turned away. Somehow we coasted on flat tires into a service station. The mechanic wasn't in but fortunately a kind man helped Rick fix the tire and we got home.

The next year Rick told me we weren't cutting down a Christmas tree. I asked Jeff if he could get us one- he said maybe but not likely. I decided to better have a plan B . I new if I broke down and bought a nice artificial tree our tree chopping tradition would be over so I stubbornly refused to do this. I was still stressing about what to do when I saw that Home Depot black Friday ad. They were giving away a small number or 7 ft prelit artificial trees. So Friday morning I got up at some insane hour and went down to the home depot and stood in line for an insane amount of time to rush through the door and elbow my way through the crowd to the free Christmas tree pile. Turns out they weren't as popular as I assumed they would be and most of the people I was elbowing were headed for the drastically marked down power tools and not the pathetic looking free Christmas trees. So needless to say I got one. So that year and several others I have drudgingly pulled out my tiny little ugly fake tree and set it up. It is really easy to set up, it is pretty much like an umbrella with green fringe all over it. It is pathetic. It isn't like it is a nice beautiful tree, it is not like i have lovely ornaments to decorate it up like a Martha Stewart tree, it is not like it smells good, the only thing it has got going for it is that it was free and is super easy to set up. Now the trees we chopped down weren't necessarily all that beautiful either and I don't have lovely decorations to grace their limbs either - but at least they have a story and a memory and the are a part of a fun family tradition. So this year I decided to reinstate this fun family tradition.

I packed all of our snow boots, snow pants, gloves, hats and scarfs. Our snow clothes were about 2/3 of the luggage we brought. They take up an inordinate amount of room. I had to dig them out of the storage closets and make the kids try them on and search for matches. It was quite the undertaking but I had wonderful visions of our family all happily frolicking through the snow covered hills finding the perfect tree. In my vision everyone was laughing and joking, throwing snowballs, holding hands and singing Christmas carols. We would stop and build a snow man, make some snow angles and sip delicious hot cocoa. Even in my dream I could feel the love and warmth and hear my children say, "boy mom- this is was so fun, nothing is as fun as being with my family." Well it didn't quite turn out that way.

First of all we decided to go get the tree a bit late in the day. So we rushed in and told the kids to quick grab their snow clothes and get in the car. They were in the middle of doing things and didn't want to go. I told them they had to and the would be sorry if they complained. The quietly grumbled and got in the car muttering under their breath. Well they weren't the only ones that didn't want us to go - the van protested to and wouldn't get us up the hill. After several tries and sliding all over the road we gave up and went home.

The next day we decided to give it another try. Once again the children protested and we ended up with only Rachel who wanted to go. Ryan took a little convincing but was smiling by the time he got in the car, Dallin got in begrudgingly after being bribed. We arrived at the spot we thought looked good. There was already a family there. The men were tying some big beautifully full tress to the top of the big SUV while all the women and kids were having a snowball fight and laughing and smiling. It was like my dream minus the Christmas carol and hot chocolate and it wasn't my family. I was excited and opened the door to get the kids out. I had told them to get their snow clothes on before leaving the house and apparently I should have checked to make sure they did. No one had their snow pants and Ryan and Rachel had forgotten wear socks, Ryan had brought boots that didn't fit. Rachel did have her boots but had a whole in her pants. Dallin also had a whole in his pants, he did have socks but no boots and his shoes also had holes in them. It is not like he doesn't have nice shoes without holes he just prefers his holy ones. He said, "I guess I better stay in the car", I suspected this was his plan all along. I didn't know what else to do since i knew he would freeze in just a couple of steps so we left him in the car. I opened our box of gloves and started to put some on Ryan - he didn't like them, his favorites were the green ones. The green ones are too small but he wore them anyway.

We made it about 10 steps to the trail head when Rachel stopped put her hands up and said"carry me". So instead of us all frolicking along through the snow covered hills, three of us trudged up a giant steep hill with me packing Rachel and Ryan begging to carry the saw - promising us he wouldn't fall on it and cut himself in two. After all, he reminded us he never cut himself in half before so he wouldn't do it today either. Dad quickly found his tree and cut it down. I was panting so hard from packing Rachel up the hill in knee deep snow I didn't care how the tree looked I just kind of pointed at one. We had to use a bit of creative measuring to get it to be under the 12 foot tree allowance but we reasoned we would only take about 12 feet home and after all we didn't have a tape measure to know for sure how tall it was. By this time Ryan's hands were freezing since snow had somehow gotten into his too small gloves and Rachel once again had to be carried and needed to pee. After everyone, but me, made a little yellow snow (which may have been the highlight for some of the kids) we got the tree drug back to the car and tied on.

We threw a few snowballs and at each other and I tried to build a snow man but the powder just wouldn't pack. Dallin had a great time in the car. He saw a wolf, or maybe it was a small cat, he couldn't tell for sure up on a nearby hill. He then saw a white hamster or ferret looking thing that looked like a meer kat running across the road. We made it home with our tree - ours is still on the top of our van, but Dad got his out and propped it up in the garage. Funny how they sure look a lot fuller and more beautiful in the middle of a snow covered forest. Hopefully our will be ok when we get it home, if not I have got a few stuffed animals we could perch in its branches and if all else fails I still have my free black Friday home depot tree I could unfold.

I sure hope my kids remember our tree chopping adventures. My hope is that they will look back on all these fun family traditions with fond warm memories. My fear is that they will be laughing when they remember these times and their laughter will be directed at their crazy mom who comes up with all these crazy plans that she forces them to go along with.