Christmas Traditions At Our House: The Tree

It's time for another edition of Christmas Traditions At Our House!

Today I bring you.....the tree! And it is certainly filled with lots of tradition.

First of all, it always gets put up the day after Thanksgiving.  We purchased this 10-foot tree our first Christmas in this house. We decided to save a little money though and not get the pre-lit one, so it takes quite a while to get all the lights on this big boy. That has become Hubster's job. And since he always has the day after Thanksgiving off, we figure it's best to get it done before the December calendar starts filling up.

The decorating is my job. Big surprise.

Our tree is filled with precious ornaments. I would say about 95% of them are ones that have been gifts. Most years, we give each of the kids an ornament so that someday they will have ornaments to put on their own tree. Others have been given to us by friends and other loved ones. I also have some ornaments that were handmade by my grandmother.

I love that we have all these special keepsakes on our tree each year. But I have to admit that there are moments when I wish for a beautifully themed tree.

So this year I tried something a little different. I decided to be a little more particular about the ornaments I used and not put every ornament made in preschool on it. I decided to try to do something that allowed me to use our special ornaments but would have an element that would kind of unify it all....if that makes sense. I started by first using some red, green, and gold balls. Then, I made bows out of some wide black and white houndstooth ribbon. It's a little different, but I'm happy with the result.

The photo above shows a couple of my most favorite ornaments. Those little wreath-framed photos are of Hubster and me at about Kindergarten age.

Since we got married not long before Christmas, at one of my bridal showers guests were asked to bring an ornament for our first tree. My Mom surprised me and made these ornaments for us. She always had ornaments with baby pictures of my sister and me on our tree growing up. So these ornaments are special to me for a couple reasons.

You can also see one of our little chicken ornaments. When I was about highschool age, my grandma lovingly stitched several of these little chicks for all the grandkids. We all cherish them now.

Here you get a little peek at some of our other decorations. More on that next week.

So that's our Christmas tree. I especially love how it looks at night.

Linking this post to parties at A Thoughtful Place and DIY Showoff.