Every year on the morning after Thanksgiving, we pick out a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And before you get the wrong idea: We don’t<\/strong> drive out to the country and pull it up by the roots, National Lampoon<\/em> style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We get our tree at a grocery store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s cheap, it comes with a mini tabletop tree for our girls to decorate, and nobody gets frostbite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year though, the temperature was in the mid-40s with buckets pouring from the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a tradition is a tradition. So we bundled up our toddler and infant – it wasn’t our week with 7-year-old<\/a> – and we set out on a completely miserable<\/strong> morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, our toddler was too young to understand any of the Christmas hullabaloo, but at two-and-a-half this year it’s a different story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We parked at the store, and Ty reached to the backseat for the umbrella.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I checked my floorboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our eyes met, and we both realized it at the same time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At home, we’d cleared out the trunk to fit the tree and forgot to stick the umbrella somewhere else in the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wondered: How bad would it be to just pull up alongside the tree tent and have them load one, sight unseen?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Maybe we can come back a little later,” Ty suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the backseat in the most<\/strong> angelic voice you could imagine, our toddler repeated: “Come back later?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n I smiled at Ty, and we knew our fate was sealed. We couldn’t take this away from her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bonus:<\/strong> As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get a free holiday planner template<\/a> that will help you say goodbye to holiday stress so you can actually enjoy the season.<\/p>\n\n\n