O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree: Family-Fave Ornaments Bring It Home

Christmas decorating at my home is done. Thank you to all those who have been with me since I started decorating Thanksgiving weekend. Isn’t it crazy that Christmas is already next week?

The final installment of decorating at my house is the tree. We get a real tree every year; I prefer Fraser Fur. The needles are small but soft and the branches are sturdy. I have a lot of heavy ornaments so this is important to me.

Each year, I go to the same local roadside guy for my tree. His trees are always a great quality and priced right, too. This year my youngest son helped me select the tree and bring it into the house. I'm lucky enough to have an entire corner of my living room to put a good size tree. It's usually about 6 ft. tall.

I love the look, feel and smell of a real tree. It gives my home that extra kick at Christmas time. What I don’t’ necessarily love is keeping it fresh. I’ve read a lot of blogs on how to do this and there was A LOT of advice on using different concoctions. Overall, though, the experts agreed “just water and lots of it.”

My favorite tree decorating tip came from Martha Stewart, the domestic guru herself, and had the biggest impact on my tree. It was about wrapping the lights in and out of the branches so the lights are on the inside of the tree. Wow! I probably used 10 strand of lights, but it was so worth it.

Now, I am ready for the ornaments. Before we started, I handed my son his box of ornaments given to him through the years. He really enjoyed going through them and being from whom and when they were gifted to him. In addition to those ornaments, there were many he made as a child (my baby turned 24 this year). He had his own stories to share about some of the ornaments. My mom started this tradition, giving us ornaments so we would have a starter box when we had our own trees. I continued the tradition with my kids.

I really love when I go into stores, and people’s homes and see themed trees. But that just isn’t going to happen in my home. My tree, like my home, is full of things my family and I love; things collected over time. This year, my son, his gal, my niece and nephew came for a day of tree trimming and baking cookies. I told them to put the ornaments wherever they like.

They did.

Ok, ok, I can’t lie. I have tweaked the tree a little since they helped decorate. My first gathering of guests all raved about it so we all must have done something right. But let’s face it, Christmas trees, like babies, are always a source of wonder and amazement.

So, my decorating is done; my shopping, too, for the most part. I have a few batches of cookies left to mix but my party season is in full swing. Kicking back and relaxing isn’t on the agenda, yet, but I will enjoy this holiday season with family and friends. I hope you will as well.

Thank you for coming along with me this holiday season. I had fun writing about it and hope you’ve enjoyed yourself along the way. Whatever holiday you are celebrating this season, my wish for you is that it is full of people and things you love. Enjoy it! There’s time to relax after the New Year!