Bah Humbug...

Thanksgiving is gone as quickly as it came, and I thankful for that. Yes, I am thankful for a ton of other things, and I really tried to focus on them during the past week. We had a pretty good couple of days I guess. I had my first (and probably my last) Black Friday experience, and I feel good that most of Chase's Christmas shopping is done. Tomorrow we're back to the real world. Chase is back to school, Wes goes back to work, and I go back to homework. I pulled down a few boxes of decorations yesterday, but this year the thought of going to get a tree, find a place for it, decorate it....it all just seems tiresome. I used to be so excited for this time of year. I remember my dad 'picking' his tree from the road. He would start around Halloween, and every time we drove by the tree farm he would say.."There it is...third row from the pole...that's the one." We all knew that they all looked the same from the road, and that the one we eventually picked would be no where near the pole, but it was his tradition. It's funny how things can seem so trivial at the time, but once they are gone seem like gold. This year things are just all over the place. None of us really know how to have a holiday with one of us missing, so we're just pushing further and further away from each other in an effort to find a new normal. What I'm trying to remember is that Chase is 5-and he is excited about Santa coming. He points out any Christmas lights he finds and was so excited when we started pulling out decorations yesterday. He is ready to get a tree and get this holiday going! So next weekend we're going to get our tree and I'm going to put a smile on my face while I decorate it. Hopefully my dad will lead us in the right direction to that 'perfect tree' he always finds...