We opted for a real tree this year and planned a whole family outing to the local farm complete with sleigh ride, hand saw and cocoa, but when we suggested the idea to our four-year old he immediately wanted to know how we would get the tree out of the ground. When I explained that we would chop down the tree and bring it home, he became upset at the thought of hurting a poor live tree just for our Christmas wishes. Although I tried to explain that this was a Christmas tree’s destiny and they were grown for this very reason, he still had problems seeing it my way.

So instead of visiting a farm, obviously hurting a tree and crushing my poor son’s heart, we decided that a lot with already chopped trees might be a better choice. So off to the Boy Scouts’ place up the road we went one very cold night. Our little man ran around the lot and through the trees more than once and settled on the ugliest, short and plump tree with a severely crooked top for way too much money. Hmmm, what’s a parent to do?

I’ll tell you what we did.  We suggested a dinner break, went to Ace Hardware and picked out a cheap tree by the glow of headlights for a lot less money. In the immortal words of Jack’s Big Music Show, “It’s win-win, baby!”