Just a LITTLE, people. That was my goal—not to make myself nuts over here. Put up my simple tree, pull out whatever else is in the Christmas boxes, hang it. Simple. Little.
My tree had other plans.
First, something was wrong with the base and it took me 45 frustrating minutes to fix it. Then half the branches seemed to have wandered away (Yes I’m proud of our fake tree from Goodwill!). Then the first five strands of lights we tested did not work. did. not. work. We were left with just one and a half strings of working lights. Argh! That was Tree Raising Part One. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and I love being able to decorate the tree with my children. My love for Christmas is the only reason why I agreed to help sort out the decorations at my work office. If this is anything to go by, I think I may decide to use an office Christmas tree hire instead as I’ve always seen ones that look nice and I think the office deserves a special treat this year. But first I had to get through sorting out our own tree.
OK, deep breath. Smile for R-kids. Continue our traditional tree decorating. This is fun, right?!
So let me tell you about our tree, should you care to know…
– Usually I’m a less-is-more girl. Not on my Christmas tree. I want more, more, more.
– When decorating my house, I’m drawn to retro, vintage, funky. Not on my Christmas tree. I want a good, old-fashioned, little-house-on-the-prairie-on-steroids tree.
This humble tree of ours is all about memories, and R-kids remember every one.
I only have one rule with our ornaments: red, white, green, or gold. Leave the pinks, blues, and purples for the rest of the house. Ok, so I might have a couple other rules, like the less commercial/the more homemade-ish the better or think sparkly and bright, but those aren’t important right now.
What’s important are the the quotes I was hearing while putting up the tree with R-kids:
“I love the ornaments you give us on our stockings every year.”
“This is my favorite one.”
“I love when you squint your eyes and the Christmas lights look like lots of little stars.”
“This is the one from my first Christmas—who made this again?”
“I love when I go to bed and can see the tree lit up from my room.”
“Where’s my big blue Santa Claus ornament?”
“You aren’t allowed to put that one on the tree. Mom tells you that every year.”
“Oh, OK.”
“Wow, that’s the first year you said that.”
That was Tree Raising Part One. Pretty awesome.
Even more awesome? The next day I came across another box of lights and decided to try adding them in. Annnnd, in the process, the tree fell down. On top of me. Guess I didn’t fix that base exactly right. So, Tree Raising Part Two took a little extra work.
But, in the end, I think it paid off. Here’s the happy, full, hopefully sturdy tree of R-house.
Merry LITTLE Christmas to you.
And check out the Christmas trees happening over at Heather’s and Emily’s!
by julie rybarczyk
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