Christmas Trees

A friend of mine wrote about Christmas Trees on her blog and as I was adding a comment I started remembering and writing all sorts of things about my past Christmas trees. My comment turned into a post. And here it is.

What is your ideal Christmas Tree? Real or plastic? Do you bundle up and head out to the wilderness in search of the perfect tree to cut down yourself or do you shop at a lot in town? White or green, if fake? Do you like colored lights or white lights? Are your ornaments predominantly homemade or store bought? Does your Christmas Tree have a theme? I have a dear friend who wants to have a Charlie Brown tree this year. I'd love to see that!

After about 8 years of fake trees, mostly with colored little tags at the base of the branches so you can tell which hole to fit them into, we are finally getting a real tree this year!

During our first several years of marriage hubby and I did not have much money. We rarely felt that purchasing a live tree was something we could afford so we used hand-me-down fake ones. One year my hubby and his brother surprised me with a real tree. We didn't have a truck but Dan did so he met us at a tree lot. The tree lot was next to the grocery store I was told we were heading to. Dan has been in Heaven for over nine years now. That December, seeing him standing there by those trees, is one of my favorite memories of him. He was always so giving.

I love the elegant look of white lights on a tree, but as long as I have kids in the house I just have to have colored lights. I tried white lights a few years ago but it just didn't seem as cheery.

Tinsel is not my favorite. Last year I purchased a couple of boxes of the silvery stuff with the intent of using it to hide the ugly little tags and other monstrosities on our ugly plastic tree, but I was afraid my kids would eat it and die, so I never put it on. My dad always liked tinsel. My mom always hated it. One year Dad threw tinsel on the entire left half of the tree. What a compromise!

I love my ornaments. I love unwrapping them one at a time relishing the memories of how they came to be in my home. There were a few years when I was single that I thought I wanted a cat-themed tree. Thus many of my ornaments are cat figurines. My husband grew up on a farm and my sisters used to tease him about farm animals so for a few years we inadvertently collected little sheep ornaments. Our poor trees have never been themed and probably never will. It just may be impossible to have a single theme when most of the members of the family have ADD. "Look, a squirrel!"