We May Or May Not Have Gotten a Christmas Tree (Before Thanksgiving)

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree. I don't know the rest of the song, but I sang in front of tens of thousands of people. Who cares? When? When I was in, I don't know, middle school maybe, grade school even. Man, I went to town. I was in choir, started singing like crazy. Thought, you know, I'm doing good, man. I'm doing great. This is wonderful. I'm such a good singer. That's when a girl named Heather singing in front of me. She was singing in front of me like this, and I reckon she was pretty good. And she goes like this— just this terrible look. I was so ashamed. I stopped singing certainly that day, and to my knowledge, for decades. I mean, there was another instance where I tried out for something in the choir and I didn't make it. My best friend did. Again, I thought I was belting it out, man. I thought I was nailing it. I got cut from the choir in like grade school. Come on. I'm not kidding you. For some reason, that screeched and halted my singing for like 30 years. I confess, but for some reason I'm singing again. It's a good thing. I know it's terrible. I know it's terrible. I don't need Heather to tell me so anymore. Finally found the brush. The brush. It's by Full Circle, not sponsored. Look how narrow this is. Okay, these are our waterers. Looky here, looky here. Oh, oh, it's perfect in there. It's got a hole in it. Anybody excited? Anybody as excited as me? They're over it. Uh, it's got a hole in it for hanging, plus it's eco-friendly. This is bamboo made, so it's sustainable. And it's got this handy dandy— not that we'll probably ever use it because we'll probably lose it long before we wear out the head— but you can pull off the head and you can buy just the head replacement because you're more likely to wear this out than the handle. Cool. If anybody has any contacts at this amazing brand, let them know. I think I even mentioned them in my book. I'd like to get a discount for our members, so I'll be reaching out. But anybody knows them, give them a heads up. I guess I'm a brush fanatic. Look, this one's good. It's for— good for like bigger cow troughs, right? And this one's okay. But look at the width of that head, okay? And it's not bamboo, it's not reusable head. We're certainly not going to throw it out. We're going to use it up, wear it out, make do or do without. That even fits in the nail, kind of. This one we had to do a zip tie because the hole isn't big enough for the nail. This is just kind of fitting, so we'll probably do a zip tie there too. Like we did a zip tie on that one too. Whoops, it's broke.

The pipes are frozen for my rabbits.

She came to me worried they were gonna die. Well, I'll help you, Lily. Let's, um, yeah, that— so they don't have any water because their lines are frozen. Go get 2 stainless steel bowls. That's my best idea. What do you think? For what? For giving them water. Or do we have a jar waterer? I bet we don't have 3. And actually, you need more than 2. You need more— you need 3, don't you? They'll get water this afternoon when it thaws out, but Not enough. I mean, there's the water. It's a gallon of water. It's a little extreme. All right, go get us two little, uh, stainless steel bowls. Three. I was thinking just— I didn't quite feed them enough. Growing ladies, growing breeder ladies. Get your bowls. Those are the exact ones I was thinking. The little nipples have frozen. We need to get these in the greenhouse. Not that it would help right now without the sun in the morning. Still gonna freeze. Is there water in that? Oh good, that'll do till this afternoon and they have more. Oh look, he doesn't know how to do it. Weird. Just stick your head in there, bro. He's used to sucking on a nipple water. What's this one's name, Lily? Penny done flipped it. Wow. And Peter's about to do the same. I don't know, that's not gonna work. See all the ice in the flame? Well, that should thaw out. I don't think it's gonna be freezing all day today. Uh-oh, that didn't get undone last night. Oh boy, we're lucky that still works. No, the hoses won't. The hydrant has to get unplugged at night, Jonah. Or the water doesn't drain down below the freezing ground and the hydrant freezes. Yeah, now that it's winter, we got nighttime chores, and that's disconnect all the waterers. All right, we're gonna fill that up because the other one's gonna be frozen, right? Frozen too. Oh, there it goes. I don't think they're broody. I think they're just laying eggs. Leave him alone. It's that time. Is Kai sickly? He's not coming out. Calling it he, that's actually a she. It's their pet. Why aren't you coming out? She's sick. They're getting pretty old. Lily, bring that to me. We're gonna wash yesterday's. That water gets in that lid, freezes it. I gotta get my overflow water going again. The reason I'm singing this Christmas tree song is because today we're going to get a Christmas tree. I know it's before Thanksgiving. I didn't realize we were those people. I didn't really get the memo that we get a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving because our tradition has been the day after Thanksgiving. We want to leave by 9, which is an impossible goal. We want to beat the Sunday crowd. It's cold, but it's there and serving size. It's our winter harvest garden. Certainly scaled down on our winter harvest garden as we're eating and enjoying more meats, but still, the beautiful one likes a fresh salad, so why not have it year-round? I saw this water going down to the road and I said, oh no, we've got another wet weather spring. And I followed it up and I'm like, oh, this has been left on.

Oh my, look at that hose! Papa, turn off the hose!

I'm going to, but I gotta be careful. This is ice. Oh, be careful. Yeah, that is. Wow. Look at that plant. Yeah, go ahead and kick it. I got 7:50.

Uh, look at that plant.

7:30 would have been a better time to start milking.

I just make—

we're not gonna get out of here by 9. Look at this. Ah, I don't know if you guys can see that steaming shape. It's, uh, 8:30-ish. Maybe we can leave in half an hour. Not only do we want to beat the crowds, we want to get back for a halfway decent time for lunch. On today's episode of the Burn It Up Cooking Show, baked chicken. We're gonna start off with some lardo. We're gonna sauté.

That cuts so easy. Yeah, I know.

Well, that's what happens when you get your knife sharpened. So yesterday we tried cooking the lardo for the first time to cut off the meat. It took forever to render it down, so I'm gonna go ahead and cut it in chunks to help speed up the process. I guess it goes without saying, we didn't go get the Christmas tree. Yet we decided to clean up a little bit, make lunch. Acorn squash, fried onions, a little bit of leftover fried rice, and the dark meat chicken. Hopefully we'll go right after lunch. We're gonna have to hustle though. We got a member webinar at 3 we got to get back to, and the Christmas trees I think are at least— could be as much as 30 minutes away. To be able to laugh that easy.

Hey!

Hey! Doesn't have the same effect, huh? It just doesn't. Rebecca. Yes? We used to do this the day after Thanksgiving. What's happening? Are we those people now?

I guess we're those people now. I just decided that I wanted— last year we went on vacation right after Thanksgiving, and so we were late getting our tree, and I feel like I guess maybe I'm making up for that this year.

Well, you know, there was times when we had to do it one year because we were going to travel or something?

No.

And you said, as long as we don't have anybody over before Thanksgiving, because you were so embarrassed. Yeah, because what happened to that?

It was— well, I guess a lot of people are just putting their Christmas stuff up early, and I thought, well, what am I holding on to? I know that a lot of people get upset and say you can't have Christmas stuff until after Thanksgiving, and I used to be one of those people, but I guess I'm not one of those people anymore. So we're just gonna do the Christmas tree and that's it. We're still gonna decorate for for the Thanksgiving table, but we're busy kind of after Thanksgiving and I— I'm just like trying to see when it's gonna happen. So that's why.

Pushing through the shame. Getting over the shame is the theme today. And Rebecca knows how to complete this song. Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree.

How lovely are your branches. I don't know.

You know the rest? Anybody? Anybody watch Little, what's the name of it? Swiss Family Robinson? They sing it. That's what it is. Well, you got further than I did. She just said I caught her singing on the vlog. You don't like getting singing on the vlog?

I'm no singer.

I didn't know you were ashamed of singing.

I'm not ashamed of it. I'm just not good at it. People don't like want to hear me sing. Nobody's like lining up to hear Rebecca sing.

Oh, they probably all laughed.

They probably did.

Does that make you feel any better? They definitely laughed when I started singing. Well, I mean, I guess because you sing. Turn down the volume. There they are. See, last year they were sold out.

I know, because we got it so late. It was so late last year. That's why we're making it up.

You're making up for it. So now we're going to support our town, Fletcher. Look at the size of those apples. Good night.

Look at the gourd.

Look at the size of that gourd.

Is that a gourd?

It's a gourd.

Whoa.

She got her wreaths here last time. You gonna get your wreaths here again? Uh-oh, they don't have small ones. We need a small one to get it off the ground this year because of this little guy. We could buy the smallest one, Rebecca. Cut it off or have them cut it off. There's a small one. Yeah, smell it. Nope, he's over it.

You think that's the perfect size?

Actually, that might be okay. Okay, if it's not, we'll cut it.

Yeah, we'll keep it because I want you to cut off the bottom and fresh anyway.

Yeah, well, that was easy. It was.

$111.

Now where are we going? This is not the way home.

We're gonna go We're gonna go get— so Jonah has requested some more outdoor decorations.

Now wait, didn't you just say we're not gonna decorate?

We're not putting it up yet. We just have to get it so that we can put it up when it's time.

I think it's sneaking up on me.

Well, Thanksgiving is Thursday, so it's essentially Christmas on Friday.

Year after year it keeps moving back. When I was a kid, I think we got our tree on Christmas Eve. You know, Christmas starts December 25th. Who's with me? And goes for 12 days.

There's no way your parents waited that long.

Everybody's like done with Christmas by the time it starts. Come on.

No, it smells so good in the house with the tree.

I have a feeling you probably got more people on your side. We'll see who's on Rebecca's side, who's on my side.

They're all on my side. No, I do want to say this. I want to say this. I know people have had a rough couple of years. This year was particularly rough for us as far as your reactive arthritis. Yeah. So I just I just need some joy in my life, and if a Christmas tree and Christmas and all the things— I'm about to break out my Christmas playlist.

Oh my gosh, no!

Yes! We're about to listen to that.

I'm pulling off. There needs to be some Thanksgiving music to save me.

There is no Thanksgiving music. There's only Christmas music, so we're just— we're gonna be thankful on Thursday with our Christmas tree next to the table.

Mom went in with the kids. I've been sitting in the car with Henry. I think he just woke up. Hey, little man. I thought she said she was done and coming. All right, let's go find her. There they are.

I was like, I'm sure we parked on this island.

Get lost. Okay, did you guys get the lights you wanted?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, I know we got Home Alone, but okay, you can't put them up until after Thanksgiving. She's ignoring me.

I am ignoring you.

Well, we did it and we're just in time. 10 minutes to spare to our webinar. I'm going to cue that up and we'll have to just deal with the Christmas tree tomorrow.