Perfect Traditions

Last night was Christmas tree decorating night at our house! My hubby did get the elk moved down off the wall so the tree could go up. Can I just say that "I LOVE a pre-lit tree?!" No more untangling or stringing lights...ahhhh, very nice indeed. Our Christmas tree is 12 ft tall. Growing up we always had a huge tree that touched the vaulted ceiling in our living room; a real tree, mind you. It was tradition. My dad would go out in the woods, sometimes we would go with him, and we would cut down the p.e.r.f.e.c.t. tree. And when I say perfect, I mean it. He would start looking around in early fall to find the perfectly shaped and sized tree. My dad is cool that way! It may take him forever to pick something out, but when he does, it is perfect. So to make it really feel like Christmas in our house, our tree has to be HUGE! We have a 20'+ vaulted ceiling in our living room so we have room for a very large tree. The 12' one is, yes, perfect!Our ornaments are not your everyday ornaments, either! I am the oldest grandchild on my mom's side, and when I was born my grandparents started a tradition of getting each grandchild a personalized ornament every year. The ornaments range from a beautiful, etched glass piece for my 1st Christmas, to ornaments from Germany from when they traveled there for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, to these beautiful handpainted ornaments seen in the above picture. These are extra-special to me because they are made from the actual slate tiles that my grandparents had on their roof when they were young parents raising their children, back before they had a new shingle-roof put on their house. My Nana sat and filed and shaped and smoothed each ornament to her liking, and then would take them to a lady she knew that would paint what she wanted on them. Then Nana would tie color-coordinated ribbons on them and wrap them ever so carefully to give to us. She made these for each of our first Christmases. There is one from 1995 that says "Jack, Erica, and Tyler Ray First Christmas." Zachary's says "Zachary Robert 8-7-97," and Katie's says "First Christmas Katie 11-25-03." They are my very favorite on our tree and make me think of Nana each time I look at them. She passed away last year on Dec. 16. She hadn't been quite as mobile in the last 5 or 6 years, so my mom has been doing ornaments for everybody since then. She looks far and wide, early in the year, for the perfect ornaments for us all. I'm telling you, we are getting quite the collection! But each ornament has a name and a year on it and is perfectly suited to that year.

Here is Zachary hanging ornaments!

Tyler decorating the high parts of the tree!

And he got in on the ground-floor action, as well.

Katie loved finding all of her ornaments and putting them on the tree!

Here is one of my favorites, from 1996.

This is another favorite, from 1997. We own our own log home manufacturing and contracting company, so of course our little log home ornament is perfect for us! I just love this one! Who am I kidding?! I love them all!