Mason left for Greensboro to be with girlfriends and it was up to me to get Clement ready for school on Monday. Verdict: My 8 year old knows more grammar than me. Other verdict: my wife is a hero teacher.

Notice the cursive that Clement is working on the white board. Now here’s a lost art form.

So it wasn’t exactly a dump, but in a dry winter like this, 3″ of snow is something to celebrate. I mounted my GoPro to a snow shovel and got to work. Extra thanks to Christopher Ward for helping me clear my driveway.

Later in the day we went sledding.

Last week our Christmas travels brought us through our nation’s capital. We normally do everything humanly possible to move quickly around D.C. We travel at strange times. We explore alternate routes that avoid the giant D.C. parking lot, otherwise known as The Beltway. Today, however, we were tourists who lingered. From sunrise to sunset we walked the well-trodden pathways that reminded us of what makes our country great.

The Heistand family is keeping the tooth fairy busy these days. Haines got knocked at pre-school (I’m sure he helped instigate the wrestling match) and discovered two loose teeth. Clement and Mason tried their best to pull the loosest one, but dad prevailed. As you can see below, Haines is a brave soul to allow his older brother free reign to lasso his teeth with dental floss.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

At 5am I roll out of a painfully short night of sleep and into my dad’s waiting cup of coffee. Along with brothers Wes and Glenn, dad drives us down dark country roads until we arrive at Harry Nagel’s farm. A lineup of pick up trucks  already flank the main barn. We park our foreign sedan in a corner and slip inside. About 50 men are lined up in two assembly lines, fast at work. The task at hand: turning boneless pork shoulders into some of the finest sausage to be found on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. By late morning we had produced just over 6,000lbs of sausage. Not only is the sausage fabulous, but the Ruritans take all the proceeds and re-invest it into the lives of folks who need extra assistance. This is what farmers do for fun.

Dad worked up a great surprise for mom this year: He figured out a way to secretly get all three sons home to celebrate  mom’s birthday. Here’s the family meal he pulled off behind her back. Way to set a high bar dad.

Sometimes it takes the cutting away of excess to reveal true beauty. Such is the Christmas tree. I recently had the opportunity to spend a day trimming a hillside of shaggy, future, Christmas trees. A sharp machete, a quick wrist, and an eye for symmetry are all that is required. You become butcher, artist, and manual laborer. With help from my friends Sturg, Dylan, and Mark, we tamed over 100 trees that will someday be the joy and delight of many a North Carolina living room. My forearm will never be the same.

The Grimes Family. Certainly one of the coolest families in all of Boone, NC.  Your kids would want to play with the Grimes kids…or at least with Wade and his stormtrooper helmet.

Complete Grimes Family gallery

Cue the Burl Ives and step into a North Carolina Christmas tradition. We are fortunate to live in the “Christmas tree capital of the world.” Our farmers don’t grow corn. They grow Fraser Fir Christmas trees and export them all over the country. Boone is bustling with vacationers who have come to cut their own Christmas tree. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Clement counted 72 trees bundled atop cars on our 15minute drive between Boone and Valle Crucis. Thanks to Tom and Susan, our Choose and Cut adventure at the local Christmas tree farm took us just over an hour from door to door. By bedtime, we had a beautifully decorated tree…a Heistand family record.