Christmas Tree

We started the Advent season in Disneyland (which I still want to write more about -- hopefully I'll get to it before the end of the year), and it has seemed to fly by this year.   We did go to the Nutcracker Ballet last weekend, and while the boys were a bit bored, Lydia absolutely loved the fight scene and thought the rest of it was pretty neat, too.  She did wonder why she wasn't up there dancing as well.

We put our tree up last weekend, and some outdoor lights.  We put a few ornaments on the tree, and I had planned to do more during the week.  Then, a stomach bug hit Lydia, and then Nate, and then Bo and before I knew it the week was over and I had missed a day of work to boot!

We finally finished decorating the tree today and it is beautiful.  I remember back to the first Christmas Bo & I celebrated together and we started everything from scratch.  I decorated the tree in all gold and white and I remember how simple and beautiful it was. As time went by, I bought ornaments as remembrances of places we visited and then the kids came along and we bought ornaments for them as well.

Our tree is no longer pristine gold & white, but it is covered and dripping with memories.  Each year that we have been a family (which I count from our first Christmas in 1995) we have purchased a personalized ornament.  This ornament is our 2010 ornament -- purchased from the same mall kiosk where we've purchased them for the last 9 years.  I was happy to see they had some new ornaments this year, as we had pretty much gone through most of the styles!

Our tree also has some new ornaments we picked up near the beach in CA, and an ornament from Disneyland.  It has ornaments from the Phoenix Zoo, from the Grand Canyon Railway, from Biltmore Estate. It has a mirrored ball that I bought on vacation with my sister from the Liberace Museum (which is now closed.)  It has ornaments commemorating my pregnancy with Lydia, the births of each of our children, and representing things important to our kids each year.

OH!  And then there are the photo ornaments!  This year, I found ornaments that look like composition books and they say "School Times 2010".  I put the boys' school pictures in those and felt they were appropriate for their first year at regular school.  I tried to have a picture for each year, but I see I missed a few -- so maybe this year I'll have some old pictures printed and fill in the blank years.  It's sweet to see my babies' faces smiling out from our tree.

I still have some of those original gold & white ornaments, but I only put a couple on the tree this year. Enough to help me remember those early years, but I like the patchwork our tree has become!