O' Christmas Tree

This December, I'm going to devote most of my posts to Christmas traditions, and I'm starting with the Christmas tree.

Growing up, my family never really had a set tradition of when we would decorate for Christmas. Sometimes, it seemed like we didn't put up decorations until the very last minute.

Later on, we had a few different Christmas trees. There were a few years my parents let me have a Christmas tree in my room. They only let me do a live tree one year though, because I waited too long to take it down, and it left a huge trail of pine needles from upstairs to the front door when it was dragged out of the house. It was a mess to clean up.

My dad always put on the Christmas lights, and then we would add the decorations. As we got older, my parents didn't really care about putting up the Christmas tree. One year, when I came home from college, I was totally bugged that the tree wasn't decorated yet, and I decorated the tree as ghetto style as I could. I mixed Victorian ornaments with regular ornaments, and I literally stood back from the tree and threw on tinsel. It was pretty ugly - I'll have to try and find a picture.

I must admit that my Christmas Tree Nazi title probably started way back then. One year, my dad bought home a tree that we didn't help pick out, and I was really mad about it. It made me even more mad that the tree had a TON of holes. After a bit of complaining he took the tree out to the garage and cut off branches from the bottom and grafted them in the holes. Pretty awesome.

When John and I started decorating trees together, he was able to witness the Christmas Tree Nazi.

Rule #1 - You shouldn't be able to see the wires from the lights - hide them well.

Rule #2 - Properly space the ornaments. They should not be placed in clumps.

Rule #3 - Don't hang the ornaments where they can't be seen. They are on display - display them.

Rule #4 - Ornaments should not be laying on the branches - they should be hanging from the branches.

(This conversation could have been overheard in our house last night; "Honey, what's wrong with that ornament?" John responded, "It's not hanging from the branches." He's learning.)

So, last night we decorated our Christmas tree. We usually do it the Sunday or Monday after Thanksgiving.

This year we didn't get a real tree for the first time ever. Since I have three fake trees, we decided to donate the money it would cost for a real tree, and just use one of the fake trees. Having four Christmas trees feels a tad bit gluttonous, so three makes me feel a tad less? Anyway...

I always envisioned decorating the Christmas tree with my family, and still envisioned it yesterday before starting; there would be Christmas music playing in the back ground, everyone is cheerful and excited, everyone knows how to and places the ornaments properly, then we plug in the Christmas lights, turn off the lights in the room, and sit back to enjoy the Christmas tree while sipping hot chocolate and enjoying a Christmas special on TV.

Since having children, decorating the Christmas tree has been less fun. I want to make it a family affair, but it is so annoying - I'll just be honest. Last year, was horrible - children want to play with ornaments not hang them on a tree!

This year started out all right. I think John not having to put lights on the tree was really helpful. It was also cute how Trevan and Mallary were excited to put the decorations on the tree, but they eventually became crazier, and I was even getting annoyed with the Christmas music. They were put to bed, and John and I finished the Christmas tree.

My fake trees are all significantly smaller than a regular Christmas tree that we would normally buy, so we weren't able to hang everything up, but we hung up all the ornaments that mean something to us. It's a pretty packed tree.

Our family tree usually has colored lights on it as well, but we weren't going to add those to the fake tree. We'll always have a family tree that has John and I's ornaments from when we grew up, the ornaments our kids make, and all of ornaments they get every year. I want to have a house full of themed Christmas trees; snowman trees, Santa trees, color themed trees, and a tree that will be specifically for all the ornaments we buy when we travel.

I love Christmas trees.