With over twenty acres of Christmas Trees at the tree farm of our choice, we knew that we could find the perfect Christmas Tree by going early to find it and tag it. What I did not anticipate was how the dry spring and summer would affect the trees. Many of the Balsam Firs had dry, brown, and brittle needles proving that the tree was water deprived. Since our son was already running deeper into the grove that seemed to contain a good number of Balsam and Fraser Firs (the trees of my choice). With my ten month old daughter in my arms, I examined several more trees taking special note of their labeled height (we wanted one that was between seven and eight feet tall). Even though our daughter was born nine days before Christmas, she never really got the whole Christmas Tree experience. Now that she was up close and person with the evergreens, she greedily reached out and grabbed some branches (thankfully Balsam and Fraser Firs have softer needles). Before I could stop she put the tip of the branch into her mouth and got a whole other perspective on Christmas Trees. We walked from tree to tree, while our son ran from tree to tree (different, shorter trees of course), and while daddy took pictures. I finally spotted one that seemed tall enough and was full enough. I checked the inner branches for water deprived needles and it seemed pretty well hydrated. While my husband kept an eye on the tree, I finished walking the rest of the grove (there were several different groves on the tree farm) to make sure that there was not a better tree at the back. When I did not find a better tree further down, I ran back with our very gleeful son and we tagged our Christmas Tree! We ended our very important family outing with some homemade hot cocoa!