O Christmas Tree

Christmas 2002

I remember one of my favorite things about Christmas was the Christmas tree. Then when I was old enough I looked forward to helping Mom decorate the tree. This tree was from our last Christmas in China Dad would bring back candy canes from the States and we would eat them on Christmas day.

Christmas 2003

My Dad, me, and my two sisters arrived back in the States early December we had barely anything, but we did have a Christmas tree. Mom wasn't there to decorate the tree, I expected Joan to do it but I guess she saw how much I wanted to so she put me in charge. With hardly anything to decorate it, we bought some poinsettias form the dollar store and went with a "nature tree". I actually really liked the way it turned out.

Christmas 2004

Over the year we had collected more decorations from garage sales and we had a lot more that year. I began to find out my "style" of tree decorating. No colored lights, no tinsel garlands.

Christmas 2005

This picture isn't the original tree that I had decorated. I wanted something really pretty that year, we had gotten some decorations from my brother when he had moved so I was really looking forward to decorating the tree. I had white lights, big white bows, white, silver, gold, and purple bobbles. I put so much into that tree I thought it was the prettiest tree I had ever done. Unfortunately not everyone thought so and my "beautiful" tree was voted out and I redecorated it. I hated that tree.

Christmas 2006

Not wanting a repeat of the year before I tried to go for a more colorful tree I made little red and gold presents to hang on the tree and went with a red and gold tree. The actual tree that year was really pretty with a very blue tint. I decorated the tree the night before i went on the road for our big Christmas push, ahh memories.

Christmas 2007

This year I wanted to draw more people into decorating the tree and sharing me joy but at the same time I wanted my pretty tree. Oh, what to do, so we got two trees. Mark had the idea of everyone making a decoration for the tree so almost everything on the tree was made by someone in the home. Even though it in't what I consider the preties of trees I think by far it's my favorite because everyone put something into it, but more that that it has helped me to see that pretty is not what makes a tree special, family is what makes is special.