'Tis the Season

Each December we pack up the car: with cousins, and hot chocolate, and chainsaws, and mittens, and snow sleds, and ski ropes--all for our traditional family Christmas Tree hunt.

But this year wasn't like all the others.

First, Mark went for an unexpected jog just before we were to take off for the woods.  He is never late for anything so our Shumway cousins weren't sure if we should go looking for the man (since, after all, there is a bonafide killer on the loose in our poor little town at the moment) or if we should just settle in for a long winter's nap while we prayed for his safe and timely return.

We decided to wait...
So while the older cousins hung out in the Shumways truck, the little girls and I hung out in the truck parked alongside and whiled away the time listening to Christmas music.   

Did you know Neil Diamond put out TWO Christmas Albums??  

Well he did.  And we can sing most of his songs to you now.
The things you learn while your practicing your patience!

Finally Mark returned home with the mother of all unprintable albeit hil-ar-ious excuses.  Relieved at his safe return, we headed for the woods.

In the mountains we tragically discovered there was hardly any snow this year.

 Just a light frosting on the ground but none in the trees!

This even more tragically meant that there would be no chance for my favorite Christmas Tree Hunting tradition:  Luring small children under snow filled pines in order to fool them into shaking the snow off  'because I need a better look at the tree'  in my demented ruse to trick them into sending snow down their own shirts.   

A fine Christmas this is turning out to be so far.

Nor would there be our traditional and wildly hazardous snow sledding with ski ropes behind the trucks either. What's the season coming to??

Thankfully the teenaged cousins found some new snow-free activities in which to entertain us all in the woods. They found plenty of green moss with which they could spruce themselves up with, then lurk about the forest in a harebrained attempt to scare the rest of us with their ill-gotten Sasquatch impressions.

 Seriously, they ran around the woods like this...

Our cousin Tanner found lots of loose bark with which to practice snowboard stunts upon...

And he got his first ever crack at using a chainsaw...

 And while there was hardly any snow, there was plenty of family!  

And plenty of forest shenanigans.
'Tis the season.