My Favorite Christmas Tree

I'm taking down the Christmas decorations today.  It's my least favorite day of the year.  

I have been known to put up four Christmas trees.  We already know how much I love Christmas, and how sentimental I am about it.  This year, because I haven't been feeling well and I'm under strict doctor and husband orders to take it easy, I only put up two.  Our big "living room" tree, and this little mess of a tree right here.  

When my brother and I were growing up, my Mom used to buy I promise you the ugliest live tree should could find and decorate it with the tackiest and oldest and craziest ornaments around.  I would seriously be embarrassed if any friends came over to see the tragedy that was our tree.  On that tree were homemade ornaments made by my brother and I every year, and old family ornaments that were somewhat broken, huge outdoor style multi-colored lights, and a string of the ugliest garland I've ever seen that must have been at least 15 years old.  She would cover the entire mess with silver tinsel and on top of the tree would go the most hideous red star in the history of tree stars.  We teased her relentlessly about her tree, but she didn't care, and didn't waiver.  The tree stayed that way from the first time I remember it going up until the last time I was there for Christmas.  

When I first moved into my own place, I knew for certain that there would be no hairy garland, no tinsel, no mismatched ornaments, and no tragic tree star.  All my ornaments would be from the same color family, and my lights would be clear.  And they were, for a few years.  And then I grew up.  And as I grew up, I very slowly and in spite of fighting it every step of the way, started to turn into my Mother.  Shandi started to bring home the most tragic looking homemade ornaments I'd ever seen in my LIFE.  Macaroni, felt, glitter-overload, and finger-painted messes of ornaments that I thought were the most awesome things I'd ever laid eyes on.  And then I realized what my Mother's tree was all about.  The kids ornaments made by us when we were little, the garland was old and sentimental, the tree star was from her first Christmas with my Dad.  I cannot for the life of me explain the giant outdoor lights, but I'm sure there was a reason for them.  The rest was just straight up tradition.  Memories made every year and enjoyed as they were put back on our tree.  

But wait... my tree was not like that.  My tree was all gold and had clear lights and everything MATCHED.  So where in the WORLD was I going to put them? You can't tell the child "Uhhh, hey that's far to ugly to put on my fancy and color-coordinated tree".  Yeah, no I don't think so.  You must display them.   And that's how My Favorite Christmas Tree came to life.  

I'm not so sure how well this works with only one child, unless you really intend to get crafty with them each season (that would not be a problem in our house!).  But for us and five kids (soon to be six!), it was pretty easy to fill up.  As a matter of fact, I had to upgrade to a 4 foot tree last Christmas just to accommodate our growing collection of ornaments.

I added all of our kids "First Christmas" ornaments to the tree.

Justice

Jamaal

Jackson

Shandi

Where is Joneya's ornament?  That's a very good question.  Maybe she will tell me one day when she's older.  

Speaking of Joneya, see that ornament on the left that's missing a picture?  That was her picture on there, and she tore it off for some unknown reason.  So the ornament sits on the tree without a picture.  I'm not taking it down.  And I'm not replacing the picture.  It will make a good story for my grandkids one day.  The top ornament is Jack's first contribution to the tree, it's his handprint for his first Christmas.  When Shandi was a little younger, she enjoyed crafting ornaments with the smaller kids, and it has become a tradition at our house to make new ornaments every year.

The two elementary schools in our city take turns hosting a pancake breakfast with Santa each year.  At the breakfast, the kids get their picture taken with Santa and they get to craft an ornament to take home with that picture on it.  

Ok, this is by far my FAVORITE ornament.  Once the kids turn 18, I give them a reprieve and they only make an ornament if they really WANT to.  Jamaal NEVER wanted to, and it was always a struggle to get him to put anything at all on the tree.  He really only has a few, most of them were so very tragic that I gave him a pass and didn't make him hang it.  Yes, that bad.  But the year he turned 18 I was really sad about him growing up, and he made me this ornament.  I was totally sappy and think I even cried.  He complained the whole time and burned the heck out of his hand, but I love this ornament.  See the terrible little red and green balls on it?  Those are wadded up hershey's kiss wrappers.  Seriously.  

There are plenty of random school made ornaments, too.

Light bulb Rudolph.  I'm deathly afraid every year that this one is going to break.  I will be very sad if it does.  Justice is a bull in a china shop most days, but he managed to get this one home on the bus in one piece and was incredibly proud of himself for doing so!  

Everybody needs a steel-wool mouse on their tree.  

This is Justice's hand-made contribution for this year.  I made these with the girls at church, and he made one himself.

That ornament was too difficult for Jack, so he made his own version of a Christmas tree this year.

I think my favorite ornaments are the ones made with handprints or footprints.  It's amazing to me to see how each child has grown from year to year.  These kinds of ornaments make me super sappy.  

And of course there are some items that are hand-crafted but aren't designed to hang on a tree.  I always cluster those beauties around the base of the tree.  Take this classy mason-jar "stained glass" votive holder, for instance...

 And this ornament is too heavy to hang on the little tree, so it sits at the bottom.  Justice will be exactly the same emotional mess about Christmas that I am when he is older, I guarantee it.  His kids will be super lucky, because he is all about the spirit of Santa.  Last year on Christmas morning, Justice said aloud "I am a little sad because I asked Archie (our Elf on a Shelf) to leave me one of Santa's sleigh bells in my stocking.  GASP!!!  You did WHAT?  ACK!!  How the heck was I supposed to produce a stinking sleigh bell if he only told Archie?  I sprang into action and ordered him a giant heavy duty sleigh bell, and typed a letter from Archie saying that he couldn't leave the sleigh bell in his stocking because Santa needed to leave it on his sleigh to get home safely.  I packaged it all up and mailed it to Justice from Archie at The North Pole.  About two weeks after Christmas the package came, and holy cow was Justice happy.  He was so excited he seriously almost cried.  And I was happy too.  

And last, but not least... the ugly little cardboard heart.  After I divorced Shandi's Dad, I was incredibly bitter about our marriage.  I threw away every single thing I had that was sentimental or reminded me of that time in my life.  The memories were terrible and I needed to start completely over. And then when Christmas rolled around the first time after my divorce, I was broke.  Really broke.  So Shandi and I went to several dollar stores and bought ornaments.  Really ugly and cheesy ornaments.  But we were happy and safe, and that was all that mattered.  Those were some tough times in our lives, and in the next two years or so we had plenty of new and beautiful ornaments for our new tree, and we got rid of all of the old cheap ones.  Well, almost all of them.  I kept this one to remind me of that time in our lives.  It's not a sad memory, it's a memory of strength and happiness.  A time when I made a very difficult decision and we branched out on our own and moved 3,000 miles away to start over, poor and scared.  

I love this little tree, there are so many memories of our lives and of our children on it.  As our children continue to grow, we will add to it every year.  Eventually the kids ornaments will stop, and I will add ornaments from grandkids to it.  I'm guessing that when we are older and all of our children are grown with families of their own, that this will be the only tree I will put up.  And my grandkids will tease me about my ugly tree, and swear that they will never have a tree as ugly as Grandma's tree... and then hopefully they will grow up, just like I did.