A Wish to be a Christmas Tree - Day Eleven

The tree is up.

As I mentioned yesterday, we brought it up from the basement over the weekend, but I lacked the energy to get it decorated. At some point Sunday I had the boys help me go through the 10 or so giant Rubbermaid tubs and pulled out the ornaments I thought we would use. That is not such an easy task. Have I mentioned that we have more ornaments than one family really needs? We do. Don’t laugh, I am not sure exactly how it happened.

Well, partly it is because I brought home my Mom’s ornaments at some point, both the ones that were our family ornaments, plus a set that had been Fred-Dick’s as a child that he had gifted her, and also a set of ornaments that a teacher accumulates over a lifetime of teaching. To be fair, my Mom told me specifically not to hold on to those. Kat and I already had enough to decorate a big tree before I tripled the collection. Then the children, and the kids ornament party have contributed to at least another full set. Yes, I am one string of chile lights from an episode of Holiday Hoarders.

In any case, I went through the massive amounts of ornaments and culled just enough for our tree. This year I went for mini stockings, and painted wood ornaments. So the ornaments from Fred-Dick’s childhood; hand painted snowmen, candles, candy canes, and angels. Ornaments from my childhood; a rocking horse I made in the first grade, the infamous 1976 ornaments purchased in 1984, pull string ornaments my mom brought back from a trip to San Francisco one year, the wooden clothespin reindeer ornaments we made in 1982. Plus ornaments the boys have made; painted gingerbread people in pajamas, snow men with googley eyes, stars and snowflakes. Lastly there are hearts that Kat and I made the second year we were married.

The boys did a good job hanging them on the tree. Matthew liked the stockings. His favorite was the green one, and not only because it has his name on it. He also liked the one with Paul’s name on it from when Paul was a baby. “It was so small, whoever made that one didn’t know how big Paul was going to get! “ Paul preferred to hang the ornaments, and once again this year he prefers to hang 2 or 3 ornaments on the same branch. I am not sure what his motivation is with this, but he has done it since he was little, and no amount of encouragement from me to do otherwise has made him change this habit.

Then after the tree was done I took the requisite picture with the boy behind the tree with his arms sticking out to the side. Those boys do make me laugh.