a tale of two trees

I have to say, it's been hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit - mainly because it's 60 degrees out.

To me, Christmas means cold and snow. Why do you think Santa always wears that heavy, woolen suit? You don't see him a t-shirt and shorts, do you?

As much as I may complain about the snow and cold (those posts to come, I'm sure), I can't imagine living anywhere else during the holiday season.

So the fact that it's raining right now on December 7, is rather disturbing to me.

(NOTE TO MOTHER NATURE: it's NOT that I'm wishing for snow right now; just not rain. Brisk air, perhaps. But not snow. Yet.)

But time is a-tickin', and this past weekend we ventured out for our tree (s).

And because I make every outing about food, we planned our tree-getting day around breakfast at a fabulous diner (that can be seen on The Food Network, thank you very much). With full belly's we headed out for our tree.

When I was younger, my parents and I did the whole 'cut down your own tree' thing. And it's fun! In fact, I wrote about it in November, and the idea of tailgating on tree cutting day.

But now I have that 'been there, done that' mentality, and I'm just as happy going to the garden center and picking out a beautiful Frasier fur. And the day we went, each tree was more gorgeous than the next.

We ended up with two trees - one for our living room, and one to enjoy on our patio.

And I love them both. In fact, I love the outside tree so much, that the guy at the garden center put a stick on it that read "back-up tree", so we'd know them apart once we got home.

Our official measuring tool: kk.

Probably why our tree looks dwarfed in our living room.

And if our super-warm house kills the first tree, it's good to know we can just carry in our Plan B tree and throw on some ornaments.

Now, what do you say we drop the temperature and give me a reason to put on a sweater?

Our indoor tree. Each year the color scheme is different.

This year's theme: retro brights. She is a beauty!