Selph Family Christmas Tree

The day after Thanksgiving around 2:00 in the afternoon, the Selph fam set out in search of our 2017 family Christmas tree. It's an exciting day that I'm pretty sure we all look forward to every single year. Cutting down a Christmas tree has been tradition for both Terrell and I for our entire lives. We did it with our parents growing up, then for ourselves before kiddos, and now as a family and something we're passing down to the boys. It's fun, exciting, special.............................................and sometimes stressful. SIGH. 

Here we are ready to set out! 

And here we are at the farm! It was a gorgeous day. Not too warm, not too cold. It was bright and sunny, just like we were as we began our search. ☺

And then the search got a little long and these 3 had to entertain themselves. Ha!

Our dilemma this time was finding a tree that was full but not too tall. Most of the trees at our farm this year were tall and skinny or just overall massive. We don't have any tall/cathedral ceilings in our house so we couldn't do a super tall tree but we wanted something full and sort of fat because I'm not a fan of the Charlie Brown tree, and because we have tons of ornaments and I really like to use as many as possible.☺ So it took us a WHILE to find "the one". Thankfully the boys found stick-weapons and were totally entertained while we searched.  

Granna and Papa found their tree first (as they typically do), so the boys got to assist and watch the big moment. 

They enjoyed helping and were pretty shocked at just how hard it is to cut with a saw! ☺

After lots of searching, lots of indecisiveness, lots of talking it over, and lots more searching, we decided to go with one that we were sort of keeping our eye on. It was taller that our ceilings but could easily be trimmed off the top and seemed nice and full. So we did it! Finally!

Terrell is 5'11, so this was a tall tree!

And then each of the boys got a turn to help daddy with the tough part. Garrison's turn...

Austin's turn...

And Layton's turn...

So after arriving home and getting our tree into the stand (without issue this year!! #thankfulgratefulblessed), Terrell and I were feeling well ahead of schedule. This were going amazingly. We were actually going to have the evening to relax because we wouldn't be fighting with the tree! It was going to be great. The boys played and stayed out of our way while we strung lights and happily worked together to make our tree twinkly and bright. 

And as soon as we prepared to put on the final strand, we plugged them in, and poof. Just like that, the lights went out. On the whole tree. Just like that. #whhhyyyyyyyyyy 

It was super disheartening and totally burst our bubble. We trouble-shooted, removed a strand, and went back to work. Only to have the whole tree of lights go out AGAIN. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Terrell researched on the computer, I called my mom, then he called his dad, and to the best of our ability, with at least 5 of us thinking hard on what could be causing the problem, we determined it had to be our outlet. Now, we'd never had this problem before. So that was weird. But it was the only thing that made sense. We worked with the lights once again on Friday night and thought we were ready to decorate on Saturday morning. 

The boys woke up excited, we ate breakfast, we started unpacking ornaments, then posed in front of the tree as per tradition (sorry for the blurriness), and then poof. ONCE AGAIN, the lights went out! #mamawasreadytocry

We apologized to the boys, sent them to play or watch a show in the basement (pretty much anything to get them out of the living room), and then vented and stressed and got ill. I was about ready to throw in the towel. I declared an artificial tree was coming soon. I declared being done with live trees! Until I was reminded it wasn't the tree's fault. Something was up with the outlet or wiring or something electrical. 

Saturday was super disappointing. We kept trying to get the lights to work and kept failing. Ugh. At one point, we discussed decorating the tree with no lights. We seriously considered it! Gracious. We didn't have the option of moving the tree, we couldn't figure out the problem, and we didn't want to start a fire or anything. I mean this was totally crazy and feeling a little dangerous! It was sooo discouraging. 

So I got out of the house for errands. While I was out, Terrell asked his dad to come over and they tried to figure out the problem. We didn't talk much Saturday night because we were both in moods and so frustrated with the situation we'd found ourselves in. 

On Sunday Terrell tested out the solution (again) that he and his dad had come up with on the day before and by Sunday afternoon he felt confident we had solved the problem and were ready to decorate our tree. 

Round 2.....

We managed to decorate (without anyone getting in major trouble.... we had some testy moments), and the lights stayed on and have been fine ever since. #aChristmasmiracle I have no idea what the real issue was except that we were overloading our outlet. Or something like that. It was really strange given we didn't do anything different than years past, but we trust our "electrician" (Terrell's dad) and have had no issues since the problem was fixed. Thank you Jesus.

So here is the finished product. It caused us some stress and angst but the Selph Family Christmas tree is now perfect. 

And I'm sure, years from now, we'll look back and remember the craziness and frustration and the year we almost had a tree that didn't light up, with a smile and a laugh. YEARS from now. I'm glad I think it's gorgeous or I might still be holding a grudge. #SelphfamChristmastreeadventure#247 #atleastitfeelsthatway

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!