Here’s a new tradition I really enjoyed – my boys, too! Chop up the Christmas tree and have a campfire! It’s perfect for boys – creates excitement out of a task that is otherwise a bit sad. I managed to convince Dave to let Sam and I do this – needles catch fire easily, it will be fun, have a hose nearby, and don’t load too much in at a time. It was smokey and actually smelled like the Krug family was smoking something else entirely… Sam enjoyed helping me chop up the tree with his “saw.” Dad – I taught him how to hold the saw with his other hand far from the blade 🙂 Dave and I came up with a new risk scale – 0 to 10 on the risk scale. We both provide an estimate, then depending on where the risk falls he will approve or disapprove my proposed scheme. I rated it a 3-4, he rated it a 5. I passed – we got to have a campfire. I asked at what point on the scale my proposed schemes would not be approved and he replied “that’s classified” in true Dave fashion 🙂 So just now I asked how his overall experience was (figured a debriefing was in order). On the “harebrained” scale it was a 7, on the fun scale it was a 5… I really enjoyed it and plan to build another Christmas campfire next year. Maybe we’ll have a group campsite at Bellows, invite friends to bring their trees and have a big bonfire! No, I haven’t mentioned this idea to Dave yet 🙂 We could combine that with our Burns night festivities and just bump that up a bit earlier than Jan 23 when we usually celebrate. FUN!