A Winter Wonderland....

It's December 10th and 80 degrees outside....not exactly a picture perfect lead up to Christmas--well, it may be to my tropics loving husband but definitely not to me.....but that hasn't stopped the locals from trying their best to winter it up around here.

Chris took this video at an event here on base this weekend.  They advertised "snow sledding" and a "snow area" for the kids to play in.  I was imagining a snow machine like the ones I've seen at ski slopes....what we got was this......

It's a giant ice truck hooked up to some sort of ice chipper and hose.  The children started out laughing but it quickly turned to shrieks of panic as they all covered their heads and ran for the hills.  Apparently having giant chunks of ice raining down on your head isn't as fun as everyone thought it would be, and isn't really much like snow at all...

We didn't let a little "snow" disaster ruin our winter fun though.  Chris and I have officially purchased our first ever real live Christmas tree as a married couple.  This wasn't exactly the hiking-through-the-snow-and-cutting-down-our-own-tree moment that I'd always imagined but I guess you take what you can get when you live in northern Florida.

Sidenote:  We also took the boys to the barber--Chris and I completely disagree on the ideal length of our sons' hair so apparently we've settled on letting it grow out until it totally impedes their vision and then taking them to a military barber and telling them to give them a "boy cut."

Once we were home Henry decided to make some of his own Florida snow--without anyone taking any ice chips to the face......

Once we cut our glorious new tree down to size (I guess in the future we should measure the ceilings before buying the biggest tree we find), we set it up right in the middle of the house where the ceiling pitch is the highest and bedecked it with lights.

I'm thinking we'll (and by that I of course mean I'll) trim the tree sometime next week.  I'd really like to wait until Christmas Eve, you know, so we could all sit around sipping eggnog and singing carols a la Little Women, but I suppose it may not have really turned out as idyllically anyway and with the constant stream of family visiting from the 20th until sometime during the first week of January, I should probably just get it done ahead of time and not risk a complete Christmas meltdown on my part.......I am still planning on an attempt at popcorn garland stringing with the boys though so hopefully that will fulfill my nostalgic Christmas dreams, at least for this year........