Christmas Traditions: part one

Christmas traditions at the Badda household consist of several wonderful activities. Perhaps you practice some of the same.

On or shortly after Thanksgiving we start talking about our annual trip to the Revak Nursery. My Dutiful & Beautiful Mrs. Badda started going years before I entered the picture. Interestingly, one of my cousins ended up marrying a gal who occasionally works there. I think she said she still comes in once a year to help out. In any case, we cut down our own tree from those folks more often than not. In the eight years we’ve been getting trees as a married couple we’ve only picked up a tree from the local Boy Scouts twice.

We talk about the tree so we have one on the first or second weekend of December. I prefer to have it on or around the day of Saint Nicholas. Of course, we don’t always get the tree by that time. In fact, the tradition is that we put it off, for various lame reasons, until the week before Christmas. (The two trees from the Boy Scouts… days before Christmas.)

A recent tradition sends us to my family farm where we get a nice tree for outside. We even looked for a few trees before Thanksgiving. Some of them looked perfect. Technically, they still do as they are still in the ground up at the farm. Of course, without that little tradition we’re also going to miss another comedy of errors… the outside tree constantly blown down by harsh winter winds. There’s nothing like seeing a tree on its side in front of a half-decorated house (yet another great tradition). This year, we wanted to put the tree outside the boy’s window with plenty of lights and a light dusting of snow. We didn’t tell him so it could be a surprise… and when we actually put it up it will be a surprise.

Next year, I suspect.