A Tale Of Seven Trees

I married someone who reaaallllyyy loves Christmas. He told me this when we were first dating, so I was forewarned. Through the years, he's smuggled live trees into apartments, taken us to some fabulous Christmas productions, and spent too much money on gifts. I've come to accept it. But yesterday, Tree #7 arrived at our house. I have no idea how many trees most people have, but I'm going to guess that seven trees is overkill? And that's not counting my ceramic tree I inherited from my grandma. Here's what's around Cocotte's place:

We call this our Advent Tree. The ornaments came from a German advent calendar we received our first year of marriage. The kids used to put on one ornament a day, starting December 1st. Now they are too lazy/don't care, so one of them just decorates the entire tree when we get it out.

Here's our Snoopy Tree. My parents give each grandchild a Snoopy ornament every Christmas. I love anything Charlie Brown, so I have to say, this is my favorite tree.

At our old church, every child who participated in the Christmas pageant would receive a cross stitched ornament made by the "church ladies." A few of those ornaments I designed myself and many, many hours go into their creation.

Here's our actual real tree. We cut a live tree down every year. As you can see, this is not going to win any awards. Our family tradition (began in 1984, our first Christmas together while dating), is to pick out a new ornament for that year. We put the year on the back. Each of our children get to chose an ornament each year as well. Some years, the ornaments are chosen while on vacation. We have some neat ones from Hershey, PA, Williamsburg, Napa Valley and Yellowstone. Multiply 25 years together, plus three kids ranging in ages from 15-20 and that's a lot of miscellaneous ornaments!

Here's middle child's tree. She usually starts bugging me to get the tree out before Thanksgiving. It's hard to see, but there are tiny ornaments (purchased from American Girl), and of course, the SpongeBob tree topper.

Well, here it is. Our latest addition. Husband received a box of old wooden ornaments from his aunt, who's been cleaning out his grandmother's house. You can't let those ornaments go to waste, hence, the new tree.

And this little display warms my heart. My 15 year old son set this up in his room. I keep waiting for the Christmas when he doesn't care anymore whether I get out his tree. Thankfully, it hasn't happened yet. He even pulled out those stuffed animals from his storage closet.

This will probably be my last post in 2009, so MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone. May the Lord richly bless you in the coming year!