Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Santa, Reindeer, a Christmas Tree, and The Parsley That Wouldn't Die

(I enjoyed writing that title!)

Here's a bit of what we've been busy with the past 2 weeks, other than finishing up school for the year, and getting ready for Christmas . . .

A week and a half ago, we still didn't have a Christmas tree. So when Rashed had a day off work, we decided that would be the day to find our tree. First, we went to a lot with cut trees set up near a local shopping area. After only 5 minutes of wandering through the lot, with the wind blowing hard, and near zero degrees wind-chill, we found ourselves questioning our sanity and asking "WHY are we looking for a tree outside today??"



The trees were very pretty, but we decided their prices were a bit too high for us, so we hurried back to the warm van and went to Christmas Tree Place #2.

Christmas Tree Place #2 was Horrock's - a local specialty grocery store and garden center that we love. Their trees were outside, but blocked by much of the wind - yay! We quickly found a fair-sized tree that caught my eye for some un-known reason because they were all bound up and you couldn't see their shape. But this one called out to me, and home it came. After thawing out a bit in our garage and relaxing it's branches, we put it up in the house the next day. And it had a great shape!









a growing Snoopy ornament collection, that started with this first one which I've had since I was a child







(sorry, he's out of focus for some reason, but I didn't want to leave him out)

The next day, we went back to Horrock's; this time to see Santa and 2 real live reindeer. I've never seen real reindeer before. I thought they were very cute - like a mix of moose and deer.

We've never made a big deal about Santa at all, and Aaron has never done the sit-on-Santa's-lap-and-tell-him-what-you-want-for-Christmas thing. So after I quickly explained the drill, he eagerly climbed up on Santa's lap and told him he wants Legos and cars and Sponge Bob stuff for Christmas. And then Santa just kept chatting with Aaron for a couple minutes, it was so cute! After Aaron got down from the sleigh, he stopped and turned around and said "Santa? I have a question. Are you real?" Exactly like that, word for word! I guess Aaron was confused because we had told him that the story of Santa delivering presents to kids all over the world in one night, with flying reindeer, was not real. Santa poked his arm and his cheek and pulled on his beard, and said "Looks like I'm real!" Aaron just looked at him for a minute, and then said Okay! and walked away.






(aren't they cute?? By the way, the owner said they have to keep them in an air-conditioned barn in the summer!)

And finally, The Parsley!

Maybe I'm just ignorant about the hardiness and strength of parsley. But weeks after putting our garden "to rest" for the winter, one of the boys noticed that this potted parsley, which had been sitting just inside the gate to the garden, was still green and alive! We brought it up near the house, and I actually used some in November! It hasn't continued to grow, but it certainly seems to have no plans on dying this winter, as evidenced below:

December 4: (after 8 inches of snow)


December 11: (after 14 more inches of snow over 4 days)


December 14: (after several nights of temps in the teens, and wind-chills in single digits)


We're calling it our Miraculous Christmas Parsley. We'll see if it holds up in the new year!

May you have a joyful and blessed Christmas!

2 comments:

Mom said...

Love it all, Chris. Your tree is really very nice - certainly better than what we have! :)

The parsley is simply amazing! Will be interested in seeing how it does.

See you soon! :]

Maisy said...

Aaron is hilarious! Owen's comment to me after sitting there was, "I guess we're still on the nice list." lol
By the way, I end up killing any plants I get. I'm hoping to really "learn" when we hear all about herbs with Heather. lol