We put up the Christmas tree this week, and my wife said she would decorate it this year. She decked it out in white lights, gold ribbon, and all sorts of gold and silver balls and kind of spiral ornaments.
I have to admit it is beautiful and looks like it could go in any decorator’s show house. My 18 year old son even said “finally we have a nice tree.”
Again, I will say that it is a gorgeous Christmas Tree.
But… I had to ruin it. I got the pink construction paper hand that my daughter cut out when she was four. Also the snow flake my son made out of Popsicle sticks when he was in kindergarten. The very tarnished silver bell that is also a music box that my Grandma gave to me and the silver ornament that my mom gave to my youngest son (I couldn’t find one that he made).
I’ve got a whole box full of hand made, or gifted ornaments (most with a story) that I would love to put on the tree to make it feel right to me.
I will somehow find a way to sneak the huge and ugly gold cherub that I bought as a joke to irritate my wife that has somehow appeared on our tree each year.
As I said, the tree is beautiful, but I miss the aspect of looking at each ornament and having a memory come back.
I still have some “bells” made out of styrofoam cups that we baked in the oven until they shrank. Sometimes I think the kindergarten teacher was trying to kill all of us with Styrofoam fumes.
We…we just have 2 trees. The family tree and moms tree. Mom’s tree is perfectly designed and matchy and goes in the living room. The family tree is anything-goes and lives in the family room. Both are beautiful in their own way and the kids enjoy decorating both.
I love this idea and may suggest it for next year. My wife said she didn’t feel right putting the kids ornaments on without them here but wanted a nice tree. This way she could do hers and we could have a “bare” one until the kids come home from school.
I always sorta feel sad when I walk into someone’s house where the tree looks like something out of a department store or an advertisement. Yeah, pretty. But seriously… a Christmas tree is a symbol of family for me. Decorations made by kids, stuff given to you over the years, balls bought on vacations, etc. etc. I’d never give those up in favor of something beautiful-yet-generic.
Did anybody see the Netflix show a couple years back about “interesting” Christmas trees? The capper was the family that had a two-floor bow window on the street side of the house and CUT A HOLE IN THE FLOOR to put a 20(?) foot tree in the window! But wait, there’s more–the tree was purposely installed upside-down and decorated as such. Charlie Brown’s tree was more interesting. If I find it again, I’ll post the title if anyone cares.
I did the handoff of the boxes of family ornaments to my DIL two years ago. They don’t use all of them (they couldn’t, they’d need several trees!) but make sure to use a selection each year. We have ornaments that go back a looonnng way. There’s even one that was on my grandfather’s family tree when he was a child, and a little felt angel my then 8-year old cousin made for me the year I was born. There are my boys’ ‘baby’s first christmas’ ornaments, there are one or two that came in Happy Meal boxes, and dozens that were made at school. There are some fine ones, too, that I bought when we were living all over the world, working for the oil company.
It has always taken us a very long time to decorate a tree. Each piece would be brought out and the story of it told or retold. The oral histories of my Christmas ornaments are easily my favorite family holiday tradition.
I’ve always admired the “decorator” trees. As a child, I didn’t want the ornaments they made me make at school to go on the tree. I wanted beautiful and matching. An annual trip to walk through the pop-up Christmas store at a downtown strip mall was the highlight of the holiday season, for me.
Now I am the mom, with a young daughter. I have a glass ornament with her handprint on it, that was made when she was one year old. I have ornaments I’ve made with family pictures on them. Her great-aunt gives her a ballerina ornament every year, and I put those on.
Otherwise, it’s all decorator stuff, at this point. New ornaments will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. My mother is holding tight onto the older keepsake stuff (which she started using again as soon as I ceded control over her tree!), but there are quite a few of those I’d be happy to put on my tree–possibly because she’s done a fairly tight quality-control job with them, herself.
Two trees. I’m a single person. One tree is in the living room with my favorite ornaments, etc. the second tabletop white tree is in my bedroom with the gold and white ornaments. One can never have too many trees!
We have way too many Christmas ornaments. So we put on the most important ones first (it’s not Christmas if we don’t hang up the bunnies with the gold and silver lamé jackets)! Then we root through boxes trying to find ornaments that haven’t had a turn in a while. These are usually…um, how to say this…well, hideous. But that’s what makes them great!
Last year I put up a Santa Claus ornament made out of plastic mesh and yarn. He had one googly eye and looked like he’d been smoking PCP. I tell you what, he made that tree extra special.
SO is allergic to real trees and there’s no longer room for the 6’ fake. So we have two fiber optic trees, a 4’ atop the big bookshelf and a tiny USB-powered one atop my #1 work monitor.
Even though I don’t celebrate Christmas I do love trees, but since the tradition has no actual meaning for me, I do the fancy designer style tree for the most part. I hadn’t had a tree for many years until last year when I got one so my then boyfriend’s son could decorate and enjoy it. Kid could not have cared less and I ended up wishing I could just do it myself. I also got a bunch of “chirping” cardinals (because the bf insisted it was an English thing :dubious:) My house sounded like a video arcade for two weeks. As a matter of fact, I was up in my attic last night looking for something and I swear I’m not lying - I could hear chirps. Finally, my cat, who had previously never sprayed in the house hosed that thing down, gifts and all. O Tannenbomb indeed.
When I was a kid our tree was the most hodge-podgey looking thing you ever saw. All those decorations made by elementary school kids, dopey ornaments of Santa sun bathing or what have you. Not a single ribbon or plain looking globe to be found on the tree.
My wife has a bit of a different idea. She also decorates the tree such that it could be in a store front. And it looks amazing and I show pictures of it to people and they’re impressed.
Both are great, and frankly as long as my responsibilities are to put up the tree and top it off with the star, I’m fine either way.
We have a ‘messy’ tree: kid-made ornaments, odd decorations we’ve picked up in our travels, Lego mini-figures suspended with fishing line, an R2D2 action figure sits just below the star because my boys love Star Wars, a few cat-friendly baubles around the bottom branches to keep the moggies amused.
I love it.
My MIL has a ‘perfect’ at her place which looks nice but I prefer ours.
