hunt christmas extravaganza vi.

I can’t believe we’ve been at this Hunt extravaganza for six years now. It’s such a fun tradition and one of our only ones we hold really fast to, and we love it. Although this year it changed a bit–the place we usually go for breakfast burnt down. Can you believe that?! Hopefully it’ll be up and running again in the future. Their bagels are amazing!We went to another nearby favorite for the diner classics–bacon, egg and cheeses all around for everyone except Anders (oatmeal + fruit) and Lindsey (French toast). And diner coffee in the perfect diner mugs. I love hole-in-the-wall diners, can you tell?After breakfast, we drove over to the tree farm to start the search for this year’s tree. Much like last year, it wasn’t very cold, and there wasn’t any snow (the snowy years are always the most magical). (I got a haircut that very morning–and got myself some bangs. I always get itchy for a hair change in the wintertime!)The tree decision can become somewhat contentious (such fun!!) some years so this year I mostly nodded my head in agreement with everyone’s tree choice. I think Steve found the winner that came home with us, though.This was funny. Parker starts dragging the tree along on the sled, and then the tree falls off and he continues walking, dragging the empty sled, for another 30 feet. We kept yelling for him but he didn’t hear us, he was just so pleased to be doing a job. When he realized, he turned around and started laughing. “Couldn’t you tell it was so light?” we asked. “I thought William was helping me!” This picture, year after year. One of my favorites.Anders fell asleep for about five minutes on the way there, and then really fell asleep on the way home while we brought in all the Christmas bins to start decorating.Christmas bins everywhere!
I always have the vacuum really close by. I can’t completely let loose as greens and glitter fall all over the floor. Here’s Anders playing with the nativity set from Steve’s childhood. You should see this thing. Headless cows, chipped Mary. It’s worse for the wear but it’s seen a lot of love. It was so fun watching Anders really discover Christmas for the first time this year. When those boxes come out, it’s like the Target toy aisle. The boys loved it. And only two broke! Like every year, we played my Christmas playlist, made hot chocolate, and then a few hours later I ordered Dominos (50% off, ya’ll!). Aside from peeling some clementines in the early morning for the boys, there was no food prep or cooking for me that day and it was every bit of awesome.Oh the familiar tangle of Christmas lights!Parker did the honors of putting the angel on top. Hope you had a good weekend and that things are getting festive where you are!

Here’s a little video I put together of our day (though I wasn’t good at getting video that day and only remembered halfway through our morning to get some. Ah well.).

{also… Christmas extravaganzas in years past!}