Sponsored by Amazon.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Since the day after Thanksgiving, we’ve slowly begun decking the halls! We cut down our Christmas on Saturday, and we had a blast, as always. When I was pregnant with Jojo, I’d drive by this tree farm frequently, and I would pine for Christmas time and our annual tree hunting. It would mean that the baby belly was finally in my arms, and it would mean that it was Christmastime! It’s hard to imagine that he’s almost 3 months old and we just cut down our tree!

This year, we partnered with Amazon to share about our tree tradition. This was our fourth year going to Snicker’s Gap Christmas Tree Farm to find our tree; we simply love being in the Blue Ridge foothills and roaming for hours (literally) until Joe finds the perfect tree. The views of Loudoun Valley are stunning and their trees are gorgeous. I simply love supporting this local, family-owned business.

Even though we always go to the farm together, so far I’ve only helped Joe pick out our tree once! We have these magical ideas of trekking the mountain with the kids until that “aha” moment when we happen upon THE tree. But so far, every single year we’ve gone tree hunting, the kids and I inevitably head back down the mountain towards to barn and hot chocolate BEFORE finding the tree. Then Joe searches for and finds the tree, cuts it down, drags it across and back down the mountain to the barn, and then we ask him what took so long. 😉

So on Saturday, after we missed out on the perfect tree (and watched a family of 5 chop it down. Tear.), Joe went up the mountain, and I went down. Just me and the three kids, and I was afraid that our attempt at a magical Christmas tree adventure was going to backfire. Thankfully, though, the Christmas tree farm is prepared for cold, tired kids, with hot drinks and Christmas goodies. I’d brought along our Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet, so we drank hot chocolate, snacked on ginger cake, and read “The Magic of Christmas” on the tablet together. And since the content is downloadable ahead of time, being on the mountain without wifi didn’t faze us.  The girls also ran around (I’m not sure how they still had energy) and played by the old, red Ford pickup named Lucy.

What I love about the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet is that parents are in control with FreeTime Unlimited: kids have access to over 15,000 books, videos, and educational apps that are age-appropriate; parents are able to define what age their kids are and how mature of content they should be able to access. And at the end of the day, we can review the digital content through the Parent Dashboard and manage time limits and set educational goals. The kids will definitely be using their Kids Edition Tablets throughout this holiday season. To be honest, they have a limited amount of time they’re allowed each week, and that’s the only way I can get through this busy season with work deadlines, holiday preparations, housework, nursing breaks every three hours, and all the other things! And you better believe they’ll be tapping into that offline content during our car travel up to New Jersey in December. Keeping them engaged on the go is a must, and the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet does just the trick!

Sponsor Note: Although this post was sponsored by Amazon, all content, words, and ideas are my own. Thanks for supporting the partnerships that help keep this blog running. 

Photography by Abigail Gallop Photography

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