First Tree

I have always had little crafty-type Christmas trees at my various apartments, with tiny decorations on them; placed up high so my cats wouldn't eat them. I've never been a big decorator, trying to keep things simple and not cluttered. I've never wanted to spend 3 days packing all that stuff back up!

I warned Dave that when we got a house, I was going to put up a big tree! It just so happens that my parents have moved into a retirement community and they haven't put up their tree in a couple years anyway, so they said we could have it. I should have paid more attention to it's assembly over the years - but that was always my sister and dad's job to assemble and light it. Luckily I was home alone, and the embarassment was not personally witnessed by anyone. :)

I realized that this tree that is now ours is going to have some major transformations. If it had a personality it might go into a little shock. Although the tree is now ours, I don't feel I have the right to lay claim to the ornaments that go with it - all of my brothers and sisters and I will go through them in the coming weeks to divvy them up. I took a couple of the ornaments that I knew I had made or given to my parents to put on our tree. And we have a couple that we've purchased for each other; and some very simple balls in multiple colors. That made a grand total of about 30 things on this tree, and I'm sure it was feeling pretty naked. It wasn't covered in 50 year old beautiful glass ornaments; funky little elves; hand crocheted snowflakes; miniature "stained glass" kid projects. And I thought, I can't have a naked tree!

So I started thinking about things that could take up a little space on this tree; fill in the gaps a bit. I remembered I had some crystals that I used to make beaded suncatchers when I sold handmade jewelry at the local Farmer's Market. They came in various sizes and colors and look pretty. I had an ornament that is a picture frame, so I put one of our wedding pictures from this summer in there. And then I realized that I have tiny Christmas cookie cutters that are too small to use for cookies, so I put hangers on those and added them to the tree. And pretty soon, the tree was starting to look a lot less naked, and a lot more like it belonged to us instead of my parents. Then I realized that this is the process of most trees and family traditions - that you add what has meaning to you and it carries on down the years. It will take awhile to build a collection of ornaments that are thoughtfully handmade or given as gifts; in 10 years there may only be 1 or 2 crystals and cookie cutters, but for this year, this is our tree; with my parent's angel looking down over it all. I didn't think I should seperate the angel from the tree; and she's still smiling, so I hope she approves.