An Ornamental Christmas Tradition

Dear readers,

Everyone has their holiday traditions – it wouldn’t be the holidays without them!  One of my favorite family traditions has to do with decorating our Christmas tree.

…Which begins with picking out the tree, something I have always insisted on helping with.  Have to make sure we got a big enough tree, after all.  Well, and there’s the fact that the way we go about it now, with putting the tree in the car, means I’m the only one (other than my mom) with short enough legs to drive home with it.

So my brother and I set out to the Christmas tree farm, as per usual.  We scope out the noble firs until our eyes fall upon ‘the one’.

8-9 foot Noble Fir – a beauty!

After having it netted and shoved into the car, with care – back seats folded down, driver seat pushed up almost all the way forward – we transport it back home.  Next comes getting our chosen Christmas tree on the stand.  It’s always a bit of a trick getting the stake into the base of the tree so that it will balance upright; last year the little sis was handed the sledge hammer (a questionable decision, sure, but done in the spirit of Christmas).

Newspaper set down in the living room, the space is clear – bring in the tree!  We hoist it through the front door and the short ways to it’s rightful place.  I don’t want to brag, but compliments are usually doled out here at the magnificence of the tree the bro and I picked.

And then…

Who doesn’t like turtles?

One the earlier ornaments – cats are my favorite!

Awww. Penguins.

A ladybug for good luck!

Yup, I pretty much have the coolest ornaments around.

The ornaments!  In comes the family tradition I so love.  Starting when I was around ten years old or so, bro, sis, and I would get an ornament that was all our own.  Each of us has a theme to our ornaments, so every year my brother gets a Santa Clause ornament, my sister gets a flower ornament, and I get an animal ornament!

Frogs, those amazing amphibians.

Hedgehog (Jawn?)

A beautiful snowy owl (Harry Potter, anyone?)

Last year’s was the lovely hedgehog – Giggle away, Sherlockians (I did). 🙂

For real, hedgehog John (or Martin) is 510% adorable.

I absolutely love my ornaments.  Rifling through my stocking Christmas morning to see what cool animal I would get that year is one of my fondest Christmas traditions.

My mom is brilliant.  When she thought of this she was looking ahead so that when we have our own trees, we’ll already have a nice set of ornaments to decorate them.  Let’s face it, my tree is going to be a crazy mix of animals, Christmas, and nerdiness – oh my!

And the Christmas flamingo which would make any tree 10x happier

You have to love the colorful peacock!

Squirrel!

Sea turtle – yes, two turtles. You really can never have enough turtles.

Kangaroos or, Kanga and Roo 😉

And that’s the awesome part about this family tradition!  You walk into or around the house and smell the wonderful woodsy aroma, and there is this living, beautiful tree full of color and personality to greet you and make you smile.

Honestly, I can’t wait to do this for my kids some day.  And to anyone looking for gift ideas, this is a fantastic tradition for nieces/nephews, etc.  There is an amazing variety of ornaments out there for all kinds of fun themes.

The lovely end result (full of Santas fun & traditional, roses & chrysanthemums, kangaroos & polar bears)

Thanks for reading, cheers!  And I’d love to know, what are your favorite family/holiday traditions?  Leave a comment below!

A merry Christmas and happiest of holidays to all.  Until then…

Mischief managed

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