12.06.2010

O Christmas Tree

The first year we were married, I went out and bought us a bunch of decorations for our first Christmas tree. I'm not sure why, but for some reason I really wanted one of those trees that you see in shopping malls or magazines with ribbons and color-coordinating decorations and white lights only. Maybe it was from working downtown? I don't know. But that's what I bought, and that first year we had a magazine-worthy Christmas tree.

JP hated it. It had no charm or sentimental value to him. He missed his mom's tree, where every ornament had a story & memory behind it.

Times have changed. Five years and three kids later, we finally have the Christmas tree JP's heart wished for, full of keepsake ornaments and tokens of our short history. And I have to agree -- this tree warms my heart like none of our past trees ever have. And watching the girls decorate it, clumping them all together on the same low bough, was so, so sweet.


We made the "mistake" of getting a blue spruce. We actually chose it from a local cut-your-own tree farm on purpose because we had read somewhere that the spruce tree was the "original" Christmas tree as the branches make a cross shape. We didn't realize that the nails of Calvary would also be represented by the very SHARP spruce needles! OUCH!


O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches!

3 comments:

Sarah D said...

How fun! It's beautiful :)

Bonny said...

HIL-ARIOUS!!!! Sean and I have almost exactly the same story. I always had a beautiful, "magazine-worthy" tree before we got married. But he has all of his Christmas ornaments that family made him or he made or have sentimental value, etc... and he wants to use those on the tree. And then we have collected a few ornaments every year, too, so that adds a little more to the stash. So the beautiful tree is now also just more sentimental and not picture-perfect. I still manage to color coordinate it with a red tree skirt & a few red bows all over the tree (or I also have a "silver set" with a silver skirt & silver & purple ornaments) and add some of the "boring" ornaments, so I guess it represents both of us well. I am sure now that we are starting a family, those ornaments without any sentimental value will slowly get weeded out. But that's kind of the fun of collecting your Christmas tree memories. :)

Anonymous said...

I think JP was disappointed that I wouldn't "give" him all the ornaments I had collected from when he and Lisa were little...including the wonderful wooden square with "MOM" burned into it that JP made for me (could be one of my favorites). That's what Christmas is all about....making your own family memories. That's why every year I make ornaments for both our house as well as my children's/grandchildren's homes.

Lots of love-

G