The Weather Channel predicted Christmas cheer. Someone forgot to tell Luke.

We were supposed to go away this past weekend, for a fun filled foray with friends into the water park at Great Wolf Lodge in Concord. Unfortunately, Matt and I have been battling illness, as have our friends, and Luke, Will and Nate have only been back to healthy for about a week. So in the end, we opted to postpone by a couple of weeks to eliminate the cross-contamination of our respective cesspools.

Our original intent was to find, set up and decorate this year's Christmas tree next weekend, in between train rides with Santa in New Bonsal and Nate's lacrosse practice. We usually have our tree up much earlier, but that just didn't seem like it was in the cards for us this year.

But because of the change in plans for this past weekend, we decided to go out on the hunt for our Christmas tree a week early. I found a Christmas tree farm less than 2 miles from our house that boasted you could cut your own tree. What is more iconically Norman Rockwell than cutting your own tree?!?! Nate found a saw and we got everything ready to go while the boys napped.

As they were all rousing from naps, the most unexpectedly non-North Carolina thing happened... it started to snow! I am not talking a little teensy bit of snow either - these were big fluffy flakes (New Yorkers would call it "great packing snow," and proceed to throw snowballs at unsuspecting Southerners). Nothing was sticking to the roads, but the trees started to look very New England-ish all of a sudden! Luke looked outside and got excited. We bundled everyone up, and hustled out the door. You know me, I can't resist a great photo. We had to have our Christmas tree selection photos in the snow, if for nothing else than to prove that things like that actually do happen here!

We drove the two miles in the snow, and pulled into the parking lot. Luke immediately got concerned. We pulled him out of his seat while we got Matt and Will situated. He stayed in one spot, and sported this look the whole time:

Classic. Think this kid was born and raised in the South?! Once we got everyone squared away and situated, the nice people at the tree farm were kind enough to snap a family photo for us:

We first looked around for the cut your own trees. Unfortunately, they were a little too Charlie Brown for our taste. Thankfully, the place also had a lot of cut trees at reasonable prices. We started our search for the perfect tree. Will really enjoyed himself, especially the snow falling on him! Luke on the other hand, proceeded to whine the whole time and walk as slowly as humanly possible.

Matt was more perplexed than anything else. This white stuff was falling on him, he was surrounded by strange people and lots of trees, and his idol - his big brother Luke - could have tripped over the bottom lip that was sticking out from his face.

We quickly found a good tree, and the folks from the tree far trimmed, netted, and put it in the back of the truck for us. As we were loading Will, we noticed the ridiculous build up on snow on his wheelchair tires. Kid Karts aren't really made for off-roading or adverse weather conditions!

As we were loading Will and Matt back into their car seats, we looked around for Luke (who we had assumed was nearby - he's smart and knows that if he gets too far away, we can't hear him whining). He was about 10 feet from the truck, standing there like a statue... a snow-covered, 3.5 ft tall, bundled, crying statue. Those are serious tears on his cheeks, by the way, not melting snow.

We got him in his car seat and Nate surprised him with his first candy cane from the tree farm folks. All was forgotten. After we unloaded everyone at home, he was the proudest kid ever, walking around sucking on that candy cane, telling us all that he just picked out our Christmas tree.