Still hot in Sept...always come after November and before April :)

We do the pickle ornament as well! My kids are all over the tree trying to find the thing first.

We go out and cut our own tree as well. We have friends that own a tree farm here, so we hang out, have hot cider and hot chocolate, and we use a hack saw. I love the ornaments the kids have made over the years. They're my favorites!

Oh yes...we used to go to a tree farm and trek all over the place freezing our butts off trying to find a tree that didn't have a bald spot, then my Dad would saw it down with his hand saw (poor guy) and then we'd drag it to the car and strap it on the roof. My tree, today, is covered in almost all hand-made ornaments, I don't think I made any of them, but I have some from my Grandma, siblings, neice, nephew, my husband, our kids (a bunch of theirs), my mom's..etc etc..chuck full of beauty she is! LOVE my tree :) Oh..and a pickle ornament that you have to hide on Christmas Eve and the first one to find it Christmas morning gets an extra present. "Hide the pickle".

We always piled in the car and drove into the woods to cut down a tree. There was a farmer who we paid to tramp through his forest to find the perfect tree. One year we were stuck in a blizzard on one of those steep gravel roads and dad had to get out and put chains on the tires. that was exciting. My parents were both teachers and inevitably my mom would come home for break laden with Christmas ornaments students gave her as a gift. My dad would come home with baked goods the high school girls made him. Our tree was covered with handmade items-I didn't make a one of them.

That one of the best things I've ever heard. You must have looked forward to that with equal parts anticipation and dread!

Love Arizona, by the way. I was just there in late September. Phoenix, and environs. (My mom lived in Peoria before she died).

When I was growing up our family tradition was for my Dad to write a poem for each of us about some embarrassing thing we had done during the year. The more embarrassing the better. He would find some trinket, or something that had to do with said embarrassing event, wrap it up, tie it with a ribbon and attach his poem to it and put it on our Christmas dinner plate. Before we ate we went around the table and each of us had to read the poem he had written and then open the gift. It was hysterical!!! A few years ago my Dad had to get two heart valves replaced and he wasn't well enough to travel to their winter home here in AZ, so, long story short, we flew back to MI for Christmas and spent it with my whole family. We of course had to do the "gag gifts" tradition at dinner just like old times and I was put in charge of the poem writing (all 14 of 'em). It was a wonderful time and great to relive that old family tradition again. :)