a merry little christmas
One of my favorite things to do at Christmas time is to decorate the tree. In my house growing up, it was always a planned family event. It got harder as we got older to get all of us to be home at the same time, but we always made sure we were all together to decorate the tree. There was a pattern to it - as there was to most things that happened at my parents’ house because we are all a bit OCD. Dad did the lights. We girls would pick through the ornaments and fight with mom about not wanting to put up what we thought were the ugly ones. We’d strategically place all of the ornaments so that the colors were spaced out accordingly, fragile ones were never near the bottom where the dog might knock them off, and the ones that lit up or were animated went right in the front. Now I decorate my tree with my husband. This will be our 7th Christmas living together, 14th in total. We go through our ornaments, and it’s so nice to see the old ones of “Our First Christmas”, “Our First Home”, “Our New Home”, and “Baby’s First Christmas”. It’s like putting one big scrapbook together on the tree. Our tree tells a story every year. It starts out the same, but a new chapter is added with each passing holiday. I love that night. That one night where we drink hot chocolate and listen to carols and go through the memories as we place each ornament on the tree. That’s what Christmas is for me.