It Will Be a White Christmas

On a quintessential Minnesota December day with its cold, crisp air, a fresh blanket of snow and flakes gently falling from the sky, we drove out to the Krueger's Christmas Tree Farm near our old hometown of Stillwater to pick out the family's first real Christmas tree. Yes, Chris had successfully pleaded the case against another year of decorating with an artificial tree. We strolled among the snow-packed rows of trees and I realized it had been years - well over a decade - since I'd helped pick out a Christmas tree and I remembered how much fun it had been as a kid to find the "perfect" tree. I always wanted a huge tree, like you see in home decorating magazines, but my mom steered us towards the littlest ones. Now that I had more say in the decision-making process, I had other factors to consider - what was the skinniest we could find to fit with our child-proofing plan of wedging the tree between the couch and two walls in our living room?

We've been talking, reading and hearing about child-proofing since before Oliver was born and not once did anyone ever mention the child-proofing consideration needed with a tree. At first I wasn't thinking about the dangers a tree could pose, but rather how the spot in the living room where we set up the tree last year is now Oliver's toy pile. Then I realized that a Christmas tree is just a festive equivalent of a bookcase full of breakable knick-knacks. Child-proofing experts recommend that you bolt tall furniture to the wall and relocate anything small and/or breakable within reach of your baby. So what about the tree?

Friends with cats recommended tying fishing line to the top of the tree and securing it to a hook attached to the wall to prevent it from being pulled down. Some of my mom friends bought table-top trees; others decided to skip the tree altogether. Since we've managed to successfully leave our floor-level wine rack un-baby-proofed, we decided to take our chances with a tree and opted for the barricade method. The tree is blocked on three sides and if Oliver really becomes curious about the tree, we can block the fourth side with the coffee table. We had tried to include Oliver in decorating the tree, so when his first instinct upon being handed an ornamental ball was to fling it at the ground, we were relieved to remember we'd bought the shatter-proof ones back before we weighed how baby-friendly anything we bought to display in our home was. Oliver, meanwhile, enjoys looking at the tree, especially with the lights on, but so far he's stayed mostly away!

Luckily we bought our tree last Sunday, because this past weekend we were housebound and shoveling ourselves out of the biggest snow storm to hit since the legendary Halloween blizzard of 1991. The snow shut down the airport and the one of the main interstates, forced even snowplows from the roads and warranted two back-to-back snow emergencies in the City of St. Paul. Twenty-four hours of snow came first, (about 18 inches in St. Paul) followed by a deep freeze with high temperatures in the single digits and wind chills far below. Chris and I alternated between taking care of Oliver and shoveling, and the front of our house looked like a system of snow trenches after we shoveled from our front walk to the street and the sidewalks.

I love a big snow storm when I don't have to commute or be anywhere. I used to have a long commute that turned hellish with even a little bit of ice or snow. So I was thankful this weekend to have nothing to do but stay home, decorate the tree, and yes, shovel. But snow is the only reason you see your neighbors during the winter in Minnesota, so in between breaks from shoveling, I caught up with neighbors, and met some new ones.

Oliver got his first first-hand experience with snow. I'd never bothered taking him out to play in the snow in previous snowfalls because, honestly, it seemed like too much work. Layering up a non-walking baby to go sit in the snow didn't seem worth it. But this snowfall was too big to pass up. We had to say Oliver had gone out in a blizzard, or else he'd be somehow rejecting his Minnesota roots. I think Oliver was wishing he'd been born in a warmer locale though.

He cried while we put on his thick, stiff parka and snow pants, and then his boots gloves and a hat that snapped under his chin, and we spent more time with this process than he spent outside. But once out in the cold air, he perked up and actually seemed to enjoy the blast of fresh air. I got pictures of him standing next to Oliver-high snow banks and he liked watching his dad try to make snow angels. But then he got snow down his snow pants, which ended his intrigue with the snow.