It is the season no doubt. I have anticipated it for a while and I am determined to make it is as good as possible for the girls and hopefully myself.

David had a strong preference for fresh Christmas trees from the farm. He liked the smell and the experience of going to get the tree. In our previous home, with two kids and all their toys and baby gear, we did not have enough room for a full size tree. David was undeterred and determined to still pick a decent size fresh tree for the house. I was skeptical and not thrilled about the idea but he insisted that he will make it work and he did. We picked up the tree and he had a significant amount of the branches in the back cut off. This allowed us to fit it against a wall and it turned out looking very good. In fact, it was hard to tell that a significant amount was cut off the back. That was my David – always coming up with solutions.

For the first Christmas in our new house, he was so thrilled that he did not have to cut the branches to make space and he joked that he was going to get the largest tree he could find and set it right in the middle of the room. I remember the day we picked up the tree. We went as a family and decorated it with the traditional ornaments and some the more sentimental ornaments with personal messages of love and family. It was a good day and he was so happy to have enough space for the tree.

Last year, I had no desire to get a tree and about 10 days before Christmas my older daughter asked why we still did not have our tree. Painfully, I went to the farm on my own and picked up a tree. My only criteria was that I needed to be able to carry it alone. When I got home, I decided to move the location of the tree to different location from the previous year to allow David to enjoy seeing it. The tree turned out fine and David beamed proudly that I was able to do it.

In some ways the experience of getting the tree last year helped prepare me for picking our tree without David this year. We picked our tree and was I was determined to decorate it to satisfaction. The tree is up, the girls are happy with it, it looks nice but I still feel like I am missing something. I think I just need David to say that it is perfect. He always told me when I was going overboard or when I needed to do more.

Below is a picture from 2012 when we picked our Christmas tree, complete as a family. It was the last Christmas tree we picked with David.