Every year when Christmas comes, I try to keep up with a few traditions that are important to me. I make cookies, which nobody complains about; I try, and fail, to get a good picture of the kids to make into a card; I remind Santa to bring mixed nuts (in the shell) and tangerines (with stems and green leaves still attached) for the stockings. I ask him to try harder this year to find raw sugar cane like he always brought me when I was little.

Then, there's the whole tree thing. We live in a valley, but close to the mountains. When I was a kid, I used to love going up to the mountains to one of the dozens of Christmas tree farms where we'd hike around looking for the Perfect Tree. Trees look much smaller than they actually are when you are outdoors. Every year, big sections of the bottom or the top would have to be removed just to get the thing in the front door.

Over this past weekend, we took the kids tree hunting. They fought over who would carry the scary, ancient, rusty saw. They fought over where we should look, what sort of tree to get, who would saw first and second and third, and how far away from me it was acceptable to go. They ran when I said to walk and tripped over tree stumps. They slid down steep hills on their bellies. I was pretty cranky, and stupidly tried to get a good photo for the Christmas cards while we were there. Of course, it didn't work out.

We did get home with a nice tree, which we decorated that very evening. What a nightmare. The bickering and whining left me muttering under my breath that next year I'd go alone to a tree lot while everyone was at school and I'd bring the thing back and decorate it myself.

But, at the end of it all, I asked the kids if they'd had fun tree hunting and decorating. They had - they loved it. "Thanks for taking us, Mom," they said, "it was so! much! fun!" Just now, I watched my three-year-old moving decorations around on the tree. She was quietly singing Christmas songs to herself (Oh Cwissmiss tee. . . ), pausing every once in awhile to admire her work and whisper secrets into the branches.