Rembrandt Tulips and our Christmas Tree

When you get to be as old as we are.

Traditions become very important. 

See those footprints in the snow?

That is the way to our Christmas tree.  

Early Monday morning, Mr. G will stand in line at the Forest Service Office to purchase a Christmas tree cutting permit.  

My Rembrandt Tulip bulbs arrived only yesterday. 

The sun was shining.  It warmed up long enough to thaw the frozen ground.  

All 250 bulbs were planted between a row of Lavender.  

I know that it is too early to decorate the tree.

After cutting the tree and after our traditional picnic in the mountains, we will "park" the tree in our pond.  It will continue to take up water until we are ready to bring it into the house...

about a week before Christmas.

In the meantime...

We will celebrate Thanksgiving at home. 

Along with our traditional meal I'm going to try out a few new recipes.

Here are sensational selections from Ellie, who writes a most thought provoking and beautiful blog, 

Have Some Decorum.

Where will you celebrate Thanksgiving? 

Wishing you  a wonderful weekend. 

Gina 

Merry Cristmas Tree

Every year, just before Christmas, we plan a picnic with our Friends, Christine and Steven, and cut our Christmas Trees.

From the quiet forest near our house.

Not until we placed our tree in its usual spot did we notice the many missing  branches.

Not even my largest ornaments will cover the holes.

I'm actually happy that the best trees are still in my mountains.

Only next year we'll pick our tree AFTER the Salty Dogs.

Merry Christmas my dear Blogging Friends.

Gina

P. S. By the way, Christine and Steven have a perfectly beautiful Christmas Tree.

Merry Christmas

Der Wheinachtsbaum, a beautiful Tradition









This year as in every year, a week before Christmas, we pack a picnic, and head for the Forest. Several weeks earlier, Gene along with our friends and neighbors, stood in line for a U. S. Forest Tree Cutting Permit. The Forest Service designates certain areas for permits. These areas need to be "thinned" so that more grasslands will be available for the many deer and elk we have in our area.







The snow was deep. The truck could only safely go a few miles. The cross county skies took us the rest of the way. We found the perfect tree. We had planned well, except for one important item. WE SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT THE FLEXIBLE FLYER.


You don't know the Fexible Flyer? Well of course, it is a sleigh. How much easier it would have been had we brought the sleigh. But never mind, we had lots of laughs pulling the tree down the mountain and there was champagne and pate and little toasts at the bottom.






I wish you all and especially my wonderful Bloggers from near and the far corners of the world, a very beautiful Christmas and a New Year filled with love, happiness and good health.
Gina