Trimming the Tree

There are many reasons why I love the Christmas season. The decorations, the sweets, giving gifts, christmas music, time off from work, and getting a live christmas tree. Growing up my family tradition was to get our tree the weekend of Thanksgiving. We all looked forward to picking out the perfect tree. We would all hike around and stand by the tree that we liked. Then Mom and Dad decided which tree was the best. Secretly every one of us hoped our tree would be picked as the family christmas tree (can't you see the excitement in my face-I must have won that year)! After the tree was chosen we strapped it to our car and journeyed home to decorate it.

Chad grew up with a similar tradition. His family didn't always cut down a christmas tree, but (even though we didn't know it at the time) we both got trees from the same person (Pete was his name). The tree farm was just down the street from Chad's neighborhood. Who knows maybe we even crossed paths!

Since Chad and I grew up with similar traditions and we both have a love for live christmas trees we have kept the tradition alive. There are only a couple of differences. Since we have moved away from California we haven't been able to cut down our own tree, but we have still purchased live trees. We have also recently started getting more than one Christmas tree (three to be exact)! Thus creating the christmas tree debate Chad referred to earlier. Actually, it is ironic that Chad wants to downsize because I believe getting three (as opposed to two) was his idea. He even purchased the decorations for tree #3! Chad loves to have the trees up, but he doesn't like the upkeep. I do agree the pine needles were overkill this year. I just love having a tree in the parts of the house that I hang out in the most! Take a look for yourself - would you get rid of one of these beautiful trees?

Another tradition that I have carried on from my childhood is yearly ornaments. Growing up my parents gave us an ornament every year. It usually had something to do with a sport or an experience, or a vacation we had that year. We each had our own box of ornaments. When we got older and left home my parents gave us our box of ornaments to decorate our trees with. It is fun to find ornaments for the boys each year. The boys love getting out their boxes of ornaments to decorate the tree. This year Devon was a little confused why he didn't have very many ornaments and Tanner had a ton! Tanner was nice and let his brothers help put up his ornaments while he helped Chad put up the christmas tree lights. I hope our family traditions will be wonderful memories for our boys like they have been for me.