Ho Ho Holiday

Once again, I am in awe of the lovely and talented people I have met in my short blogging life span. I managed to squeeze myself into a fine group for a Ho Ho Holiday Swap. Today, I will be a guest poster on Wonder, Friend. Check it out HERE. 

My fabulous guest post comes from Ashley at Just Another Mom of 2.
Enjoy!

Our Magic Tree

There's nothing quite like getting settled in a new state only days before Christmas. While moving at any time of the year is stressful, the holidays take it to a whole new level. We typically drive and bring along our Christmas decorations. However,this year, because we were moving so far- from the East Coast to Alaska- we decided to take a new approach. We would simply put Christmas together- in 5 days or less. Piece of cake.

Ahem.

Of course, the main component to our celebration is the Christmas tree. We did not think twice about it- I mean, really, how hard could it be to find a tree in Alaska?

Ahem again.

Sure enough, there was some sort of Christmas tree shortage in all of Anchorage. Yes, seriously. We drove all around, visited multiple nurseries, called high and low- all as we drove past no fewer than three hundred perfect Christmas trees on the side of the highway.

Finally, after hours of searching and tears and frustration, we call the last number on the google search list. Our toddler had now been screaming for forty-five minutes, our five year old had been repeating "where's our tree" for hours, and we were now pulling into a parking lot called Bob's for our outdoorsy tree adventure.
We cautiously got the kids out of the car, glancing suspiciously at the -very- tiny selection- none taller than my 22 month old. Snow had started to fall, the sun was setting and it was about 5 degrees outside.
I'm not sure if the man saw my daughter's tear-stained cheeks or the ones threatening to spill out of my eyes, but he led us around to the side. He told us he had this one bundled up for someone, but they had changed their mind and wanted a smaller one instead. He was closing up and had all but forgotten about it- but said it was ours if we wanted it.

Bob became our new hero. And a few hours later, as we settled in front of the tree, with the fire blazing and the snow falling outside, the day became our new favorite memory.

Want more holiday memories? Here's a linky to our Ho Ho Holiday Swap participants!