Every year around this time I feel a deep need to watch the movies that remind me of holidays past.

Times spent in happy coziness with my parents, childhood friends, college roomies, and nowadays my Honey and the kids.

And just in case you’re looking for a little holiday cheer yourself, I’d like to recommend some of my absolutely favorite Christmas movies. Categorized by the period that I fell in love with them.

As a Kid:
A Charlie Brown Christmas
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Meet Me In Saint Louis
The Bishop’s Wife
White Christmas
Holiday Inn
It’s a Wonderful Life

High School:
Gremlins
Scrooged
A Christmas Story

College:
The Ref
Mixed Nuts
National Lampoons Christmas Vacation
Home Alone

Now:
While You Were Sleeping
The Preacher’s Wife
The Associate
The Holiday
Love Actually

The list gets a little longer every year or so… It’s getting hard to fit them all in over one season. Still, we like to try.

Is my list missing any of your favorites?

I realize that some of you may be a tad worried about our tree situation given yesterday’s post about the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. Rest assured my friends; this year we found a great one.

Now that’s not to say I wasn’t worried when this quest began. I’m a city girl at heart and this country-small town living thing doesn’t exactly come naturally. So you’ll remember that the first place we went to (a lot that I’d noticed while grocery shopping) had nothing left but “Charlie Browns”.

While I started to ponder which parking lot turned tree lot we should try next, Hubby took over and decided we’d try the place he’d gotten his tree from EVERY YEAR growing up. He drove, and drove, and drove out into the sticks (ok maybe I’m exaggerating, but it felt like forever) until we ended up in smack dab in the middle of nowhere (call it another exaggeration if you will but half an hour north of the small town we call home certainly feels like the middle of nowhere in my opinion).

Manthy’s Christmas Tree Farm was our destination. I tried to get a pic of the sign to show you but didn’t see it until we were driving away. Anyway, this place really was a tree farm with row upon row of Frasier, Pine, Spruce, Noble, you name it, and they had it.

The kids LOVED it. Yes this was the first time they’d ever been out to cut their own tree. What can I say? I like to do things my way and I was raised with the notion that trees come from a lot - like a parking lot. It’s taken Hubs a few years to convert me to his way of thinking.

We trudged out into the fields and started our search. The kids went wild and cries of “I found it! I FOUND IT!” abounded. I was a bit slower than the rest of them (note to self: wear shoes - even better boots - that you don’t love when shopping for a tree) and felt a bit of concern at the specimens I saw.

Trees like this,

and this,

And this,

do not inspire confidence in your tree farm. So I distracted myself with the beautiful views while Hubs and the kids began negotiations for a tree they could all love. Since my one-sided tree mishap, I’ve been banned from these proceedings.

Once they were in agreement, Hubby, M, and Z all took turns with the saw. Several calls of “TIMBER!” later and we carried it back to the truck. On the way out the attendants asked us if we’d like our tree baled and pointed to this sign:

It’s so nice to meet kindred spirits. Hee, hee. We may just have to come back here next year…

And our tree, you ask? Well we think it looks just lovely. What do you think?

This weekend we took our brood to pick out the Christmas tree, which is a family adventure we all look forward to. We got a later start in the day than I would have liked, and so the first place we went, the attendants yelled out “All we have left are Charlie Browns!” And the kids and I burst out laughing….

You see, a number of years ago, just after M and Z’s father and I went our separate ways, I found myself with two young children and completely broke. And of course I was too proud to tell anyone, especially my folks, about our bad money management.

It was just before Christmas and the kids were with their dad for the afternoon. I was trying to keep their life as “normal” as possible despite the circumstances. So I took what money I had left over after buying the essentials, and went to buy a tree. After all, we had always had a live tree before.

I went to one of these parking lots run by the boy scouts, where the trees are all propped up next to each other. And I found the perfect tree. Well, it was perfect because I could afford it. They bound it up and I happily took it home. I wanted to have it in the stand when the kids came home, so that we could all decorate it together.

Then I got a better look at it and realized it only had branches on one side, and even then it was pretty sparse. Plus it was also a bit tall for the space. Ah! I had a great idea.

I went and got the saw from the shed and cut the bottom third off the tree, and put the top part in the stand. Then I lopped the branches off the bottom part, and with a little superglue (doesn’t that stuff stick anything together?), and the creative use of some tinsel I attached the branches to the tree in the places with the biggest gaps. By the time the kids came home it looked fantastic. And the look on their faces when they walked through the door was priceless.

So we played Christmas music, strung lights, hung ornaments and drank hot apple cider. Then we sat down to just stare at the pretty tree - our little work of art.

As the evening wore on, and the weight of the ornaments, the heat of the tree lights and the heat in the living room took effect, slowly but surely the attached limbs began to droop.

At first the kids didn’t notice, but I watched as a wilted branch sagged onto the branch below. I hoped it was just a malfunctioning spot of superglue and that the rest would hold - at least till the kids went to bed.

But when that first branch hit the floor there was no covering it up. And I will never forget the look of horror on those little faces.

When the second and third branches (and accompanying ornaments) fell to the floor, the kids looked at each other and burst into giggles. We then all sat mesmerized as, one by one, my attached appendages unattached themselves and ended up in various stages of droop or drop.

It is one of those bittersweet memories I’ll never forget.

After the kids went to bed, I did what I could to make the best of our one-sided tree. But from that year on, they have insisted on picking out the Christmas tree. And who am I to disagree?

So, here’s to Charlie Brown Christmas Trees everywhere….. May your branches never droop!