Kick-off to Christmas

About a week and a half ago, we hope we started a new family tradition. We decided to forgo the tree lots on Haywood Road and head to a local Christmas Tree Farm to find the perfect tree. We ended up at May-Lan Farms in Pelzer, SC. It was a great morning - sunny blue skies with a tiny nip of cold in the air - warm enough to not need a coat, but cool enough to feel a tad bit like the holidays. When we arrived, we were greeted immediately by a very helpful lady who told us the drill and handed us a saw. We took off to the fields of trees before us. We had a bit of a hard time decided whether we really liked a Leland Cypress tree for a Christmas tree or not. We decided that we should try it and see what we thought. After all, we could always go back to a frasier fur or whatever next year. Mason helped pick out a great tree - full and perfectly shaped. After working on pictures for our Christmas card with an uncooperative Kate, Mason and Tedd got to work cutting down our tree. Kate and I stood back and offered our support! We had to drag our tree out to the "thoroughfare" and someone brought it back up to the main area where they shook it, wrapped it and had it waiting for us.

While this was taking place, we decided to wander over to their petting zoo and check it out. They have the biggest pig I think I have ever seen in my life! He weighs over 600 lbs! They also had a couple of turkeys, peafowl, goats, rabbits, etc. The girls had fun visiting their barnyard buddies. On our way back towards our Christmas tree, we stopped off to roast a few marshmallows on the fire. Then it was time to claim our tree, get it tied on the car and head home. We now have a beautifully decorated tree standing on our den - some of the ornaments are too close to each other, but we had help decorating!

That evening we decided to take in the Poinsett Parade downtown. This is your definite hometown parade with local high schoool bands, lots of dance companys, your local government officials riding in cars and many other floats/groups. Honestly, I think if you sign up to be in this parade you are allowed in it. There was someone from Liberty Tax Service dressed up as the Statue of Liberty - probably not a bad marketing tool with tax season right around the corner! The float that had us all in stitches was the Sweet Tea Queens. They had a website so I had to go check it out. As we guessed, they are the Spartanburg local chapter of the Sweet Potato Queens, a concept which has been explained and made popular by a series of books by Jill Conner Brown of Jackson, MS, who came up with the idea in 1982. It was a bit much! Anyway, we had fun downtown with a couple of families, who each had 2 girls, so we had 6 parents and 6 girls hanging out! I've got a few pictures I'll add when I get them uploaded from my camera!

It was a great way to kick off December and get into the Christmas spirit!