Our favorite family tradition during the Holidays

The  thing that gets me excited for the holidays is when our family goes out  and cuts down our Christmas Tree. This is a tradition we started when  we first moved to the Philadelphia area, when living in South Florida we  don't have many choices and Lowes was our best bet...very sad!

We make a whole day of it, getting up early with coffee in hand we head out to Coleman Christmas Tree Farm. We go with another family, they have been making it their tradition  for the last 8 years and we have tagged along for the last 3 years.

Our  first stop is to visit Santa, amazingly he seems to be there every time  we cut down our tree. The boys are excited to share with Santa their  "wants" and so far we only have 1 from each of them. Jackson wants a  remote control train and Finn wants a Garbage Truck with garbage cans.

Afterwards, we head over to Santa's Christmas Shop and the boys pick out their ornaments for that year. It's so funny to  me that with the million ornaments to choose from they pick very simple  ones. This year Jackson picked a deer and Finn and Police car.

Next  is when the real fun begins, we head on the tracker and we are on our  way to find the perfect tree. This year we also went with 3 couples and  of course we were the last to find ours.

 I  make it my mission to find the perfect tree, we all have our opinions  on what tree is the best but in the end (about 30 minutes later) we  agree of "THE ONE". This year we ended up finding a 10 ft tree that was a  bit bare on the bottom so we realized how full the top was so we just  cut about 3 inches off the bottom to make that perfect tree.

When  we got home my husband needed to use his saw to trim because the trunk  was so big. It makes for great greens to spread throughout the house.

When  we are totally frozen we head to the food tent for either pulled pork  or turkey sandwiches which are make from a local restaurant that uses  local homemade ingredients. We warm our bellies then head on home to  decorate, I love that the tree doesn't need to fall since it's newly cut  so we can decorate it that same day.

Some  people may think that having a real tree isn't very environmentally  friendly so they will buy a artificial tree. I tend to disagree and here  is why...

* For an artificial tree to be kinder to the environment a  homeowner must use the same artificial tree for two decades.  Two decades! In twenty years, those white and silver artificial trees  may be long dated.

* 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide is produced in the growing,  transportation and disposal of a real tree compared with the 48  kilograms produced in the manufacture of the average artificial tree.

* Some people are concerned with deforestation  around the world.  But most Christmas  trees for sale these days are grown not in the forest but on tree farms, for the express purpose of being cut.
Live trees actively photosynthesize as they grow from saplings, which  removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After they have been cut and  Christmas is over, they're usually chipped for mulch. As mulch, the  bits of tree very slowly decompose, releasing carbon dioxide back into  the atmosphere. So in the end, a  real Christmas tree is carbon neutral, putting the same amount of carbon dioxide back into the air as it took out (albeit much more slowly).

* Real trees are also often recycled after the holiday, whereas artificial trees end up in the dump more often than not.

For more information on the Artificial vs Real debate check out this article from MSNBC

This post was given to us by Trina O'Boyle founder of O'Boy! Organic. O'Boy! Organic offers services and classes for parents and children. For more information, tips and recipes from Trina please visit her at www.oboyorganic.com