Happy Holidays from the Crofts home!
We stopped downtown for some Christmas Eve happiness.
And yesterday I went with my sister and dad and enjoyed the beauty of Mount Hood!
I wish you the best for your holidays, and hope they include as much family warmth.
Todays was one of the most important days in December – the day we bring home our Christmas tree. In recent years we may not have cut down the tree ourselves every time, but as self respecting Oregonians we have always gone to a tree farm to pick it up! This year was colder than usual, but it was beautiful and I was happy because it was the first time I’ve been home to pick out the tree since high school.
Fun fact: did you know that Oregon is the no. 1 producer of Christmas trees? We love our trees (I wanted to link to an Oregon tourism commercial that said “Do you like trees? Visit Oregon” But I couldn’t find it. Sad day. You’ll have to imagine it.).
I know it’s after midnight…. but I hope you had a very, very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Love you all.
One of my (many) favorite things about Christmas is the tree. And the best part of it was always going out to the tree farms to cut one down ourselves. One of the wonderful things about living here is Oregon is that while downtown Portland is less than 5 miles away, so are the tree farms (just in the other direction toward the beach). Apparently Oregon produces most of the Christmas trees sold in the states, so the one in your house might be from here.
Every year we would pick a day at the beginning of December and head out to the tree farms in search of the perfect tree. Sometimes we would stay out all day and even go to multiple farms, while others we would luck out and find one quick.
This year even though Amber and I weren’t here to help, my parents went and scouted out this beautiful 11” tree.
My mom found a large sample of the millions of photos we have from tree farms in preparation for this post, such as there are too many for me to include in the body of this blog. So, if you are a fan of tree farms or my childhood, feel free to click through the expanded collection.
And here, for your Christmas enjoyment, are moments from tree hunting past! As many years as we could find.
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003 --- This picture is being evasive.
2004
2005
2006
Also… in case you doubt that buying a real tree is better, the New York Times has my back. Well, at least in objective way where the facts still seem to point in my favor. Apparently cutting a real tree every year is more environmentally friendly than getting a fake one. Plus, real trees smell good. I’m kind of a fan, if you can’t tell: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/business/energy-environment/18tree.html?hp
Merry Christmas Eve!
It’s been wonderful being back home. I was only here for two weeks during the summer, and it really just wasn’t enough. And my bed here is so comfortable. Every day I’ve been sleeping in for ridiculous amounts of time. I keep thinking eventually I’ll be all caught up on sleep and start waking up at normal times, but there’s no sign of that happening yet.
This whole week the saturday market is doing the festival of the last minute, meaning it’s open every day until Christmas, so we went down to catch it today. Here are some pictures of the holiday downtown magic:
Amber said she wanted me to start a photo company so she could have the official job title, “Amber the Poser.”
Santa was selling chestnuts at the market.
Oregon love.
We bought some Portland ornaments. Not the bald eagle one.
And there were even some carolers to bring the Christmas spirit.
More market stuff I’m too lazy to write captions for.
I just really liked this for some reason.
There were lots of other peoples holiday shopping.
We went into (the new, three story) H&M when it was light outside…
and came out when it was dark. Took the traditional umbrella man photo, naturally.
When dad got off work he joined us for dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery next to his office, where I continued my mac & cheese quest.
Night night night.
Amber completed the trip with some Christmas window wishing at Tiffany’s.
Being home is nice.
