I recently had a somewhat shocking epiphany as a parent. My daughter, Hazel, is now old enough that she will remember things about this time of her life. At the time I had this thought, we were both having a terrible day and there had been a fair amount of crying (mine and hers).
My epiphany came back to me this weekend while I was standing in the snow, watching Hazel, giggling like mad, scooping endless handfuls of snow onto her head. Now there’s a memory I hope sticks.
We were out near Big Four on the Mountain Loop Highway, cutting a Christmas tree. We’ve cut a tree off the Mountain Loop for three years in a row now. Hazel is 4 now, and I realized that, if we keep up this tradition, she won’t remember a time when we didn’t go cut a tree every year.
We headed out on the loop on Sunday with two other families and their kids. It was after the snow fell, and everything was beautifully sparkly in the sun.
Normally, we head out on the side roads but we were a bit leery of road conditions. The ranger station told us they were sketchy after the snow. We didn’t want to worry about chains, so we parked at the Big Four lot and headed off into the woods nearby.
We looked at dozens of trees before, of course, heading back to the first one we looked at. We cut it down, which is easy. (For some reason the trees in the woods always have much smaller trunks than those at tree farms, even though they’re the same height or taller.)
It was wonderful to wander through the snow with friends, watching our kids play. One of the kiddos was overtired and didn’t do well with the cold. He started crying to return home before we were done. In the resilient way of kids, though, he was chatting happily about the tree hunt by the time he was back home.
Once we got home, we discovered our tree was about a foot and a half too tall to fit in our house. Oops. Things seem so much smaller when you’re out in the woods. We cut off the bottom and I’m going to use the extra branches to decorate our mantle and front door.
My daughter helped me decorate the tree. Each day we’ve been adding a few more ornaments. She loves it.
With any luck, she’ll remember that, too. (But maybe not the the four-letter words I used while trying to make the light string stop turning off.)
Go cut your own tree
To cut a tree in a national forest, you need a permit. They’re $10. Get details on how to get one here. When you get your permit, ask for suggestions for good places to find a tree.
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