The Bunch sing: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, WHERE ARE YOU??????

Santa

Thanksgiving was early this year. Yes, it was still on the fourth Thursday, but it fell in such a way that there was still a full week left before December. We LOVE Christmas in our house. The kids and I watch a Christmas movie at least once EVERY day; we make cookies; we play with Cookie-our elf on a shelf-; we go Christmas light looking and pick one large drive thru display to visit. Last year we went to the Texas Motor Speedway Lights and the year before a display in Ardmore, OK. This year's display will be at pioneer village in Sherman. I was soooo excited that Amazon announced that they were selling REAL trees this year. I always had a real tree growing up. My parents would drag my brother and I out every "Black Friday" to a tree farm in far east Texas to get our perfect tree. I hated that drive. My Dad always tried to take his shortcuts, which have achieved infamous status, and somehow after doing this for multiple years we NEVER remembered a saw. So when I saw Amazon was offering trees this year, I was one of the first to pre-order one. I picked a beautiful Douglas Fir from North Carolina, no Texas pines for us. They did not start shipping the orders until Thanksgiving so my tree should arrive right after. I was so excited I have always used an artificial tree so the kids have never had that authentic (read daily cleaning of dropped needles and crawling under the tree to water it) experience. Apparently, my husband had never had a real tree either, though he was not as excited as the kids for this experience. Fast forward about 10 days, I have no tree STILL and now UPS tells me the number I have been tracking it with does not exist. I am thinking this is not a good sign. My poor little tree has been without water in a box for over a week now and I can only imagine how horrible it will look upon its arrival, if it makes it at all. At this rate, we will be one of those people who put up a tree on Christmas Eve, a dead one at that. For now, we are lovingly placing our beautifully wrapped packages around an empty tree stand with a skirt! T suggested we might put lights on the stand to make it more festive. He might be on to something.

The first night of Cookie's adventures....It was T's turn.

Maybe we should move our presents under the tumble weed tree.

Just imagine a beautiful tree here. Lovely isn't it? Thanks Amazon.

On the chicken front, the found chicken has been moved to the regular coop. It was just as I suspected. She is hated by all, pecked and chased around the yard, and not allowed to enter the coop to eat. She is also our most timid chicken and LOVES to be held. She comes running as fast as she can to us when she sees us and wants to be carried around ALL the time. She whines at you if you don't pick her up. I still have the dog crate in the main coop and when (not if) the others get too mean they get a time out in the crate for a bit. I have two, that are the main instigators, who have spent a lot of sister/sister time in that crate. They don't exactly love the new girl now, but they are becoming more tolerant of her. They only get put in the crate every couple of days now. I figure in a couple of weeks they should have worked through all their transition issues....I hope.