I've never been a fake Christmas tree kind of person. I like the smell of a real one too much, and I like the adventure of going out and cutting down our own, kind of like Clark Griswald in “"Christmas Vacation" only I like to think much more dignified.

We set out on the day of winter's first snowstorm to a tree farm far far away, loaded down with puffy jackets, boots, snowpants, hats, mittens and scarves. We sipped on hot cocoa and crunched on our candy canes.

As the first real snowfall of the season began and the flakes began to cover us and the ground, "may all your Christmases be white" rang through the air as a CD played outside.
It was picture perfect.

Except … the batteries on the camera were dead, we had been searching for an hour for a tree and couldn't find one in the variety we like that wasn't brown or in bad shape, my arms ached from carrying my 2-year-old the entire time and the other two kids were well on their way to a meltdown after walking for so long and getting hungry for lunch.

We packed up the kids empty-handed and headed to a familiar tree lot in Appleton and grabbed the first one we found.

For a moment I thought about how much easier this day would have been if we had one of those Christmas trees in a box, the kind with the lights already on them that can be assembled as fast as you can say, "Ho, ho, ho."

Instead, I'm embracing the imperfections of the season. From our slightly misshapen tree to overly decorated cutout cookies, nothing turns out perfectly during the holidays.

But at least our tree smells like Christmas.