Oh, Christmas Tree

Two trees. One small, one even smaller, because boys must have a loft tree, they tell me. Of course they do. Finding the two trees is like treasure hunting the forest in knee-deep snow (or belly-deep if you happen to be of the fur variety). Boots chomping the snow, gazes thrown upward. Spy a tree, shake off the snow, have a closer look from all sides. Keep looking. Chomp, chomp, chomp. 

Nellie zooms by, porpoising through the powder, sending white spray pluming like cold smoke. 

Boys triumph. Find a tiny tree, cut the tiny tree. Then chase each other with it.

I don't know. 

This is what they do. 

If the tree arrives home a bit crumpled, we all know why. 

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Hello, loves. We've arrived home safely, having made it through a blizzard which closed a northern interstate right behind us (we may have been one of the last cars through), while traveling to visit college campuses. Oy. Prayers, white knuckles, and all our experience of winter driving kept us on the road, but my heart goes out to the many, many who lost control (in all our lives in Montana, Alaska, and Wyoming combined, we'd never seen anything like it). Home feels very, very good.