My Christmas Tree

My Christmas Tree is not a Christmas Tree of beauty and coordinating colors - in fact, it is quite the opposite.

Let me back up a wee bit - I do not like commercialized Christmas. Anyone who knows me well knows this. The idea that people run themselves straight in to debt to simply buy presents because they *have to* or people who decorate their houses like Clark Griswold - it all simply annoys me. I don't mind it overall as long as I know that those people are truly celebrating Christmas as it was meant - to celebrate the birth of our Lord Savior, Jesus Christ to the Virgin Mary.



So - with that said - I still have a Christmas Tree each year, although admittedly, in the first years we were married and had no children, we did not put up a tree. Once we had children, I found a reason to have a Christmas Tree - to be the display case to all the wonderful ornaments my children made and would make in the future. Each ornament says something personal to me and reminds me of how wonderful each year with them has been.

So for this post, I'd like to share my Christmas Tree. Now, while I could show you all the ornaments, I am only going to share those that were made by hand - no store ornaments!

DC and Squirt circa 2001: this was a photo cut and glued into a plastic can lid - all by DC when he was a little over 2 years old

 

Squirt's first holiday beading project: I can't remember the exact year on this one but I know she was around 5 or 6. She was so proud to bead us a moon with a bell on the tip - a special ornament for our Christmas Tree and it has been since it was made.

This is a shot of really 3 ornaments. The first is the cinnamon dough ornament of a music note. Surprisingly that was made this year by DC age 13. He just wasn't paying attention to the hole and how the weight of the ornament would hang - upside down seems to be the answer to that question. The second ornament is the hand cutout. I have a hand cutout from each child from daycare for every year up until age 11. These are probably my favorites on the tree. I love seeing them every year and the kiddos like to put their meat hooks on them now and show how much they have grown. The third ornament is one you cannot see the front - see the green line in the back? That's a pot holder - when DC was 1, we went to a local event here and he used that and some paint to put his hand print on it. I really like that one too.

This is one of three mini-paintings that hang on my tree. This is the one that I did. They were done 2 years ago. Each of the children did the other two. I would show you those but they have their names on them. DOH! Trust me when I say they are SUPER cute!

Ok, you caught me - my real name is Crystal. This ornament was given to me in 1981. While its not handmade it is special to me because it was given to me by my kindergarten teacher. She had one for every student and had our names etched in it. She was a special teacher and really did set me on the right path as far as education is concerned.

This one shows the mini-painting I showed you before, and another handmade ornament by DC - the popsicle triangle with picture. You can also see another hand and a crocheted snowflake... oddly, out of 8 snowflakes, that is the only one that survived.

My Christmas Tree doesn't really have a toppeer - what I have at the top of my tree are angels (plural). Two of the angels are like the one you see here - a coffee filter angel: one made by DC and the other by Squirt. The little fluffy wing on the left is another angel made by Squirt. On the lower right you see a tiny little arch - that is the wings of another angel given to me to be a regular ornament by Rabbit - I doubt she realizes I still have that ornament and that it goes at the top of the tree every year.

My tree has many  more ornaments with even more stories and I'd love to share them all with you. While I know this post would be entirely too long if I did that, just know I can sit on my loveseat and look over at my hodge podge tree and smile. It may not belong in a magazine, but it definitely belongs in my living room.