We got our tree!!! We had a wrestling match with our tree trunk, & then our tree stand, but after 3 rounds, a chainsaw, & a new stand we won! And a week later the tree is still standing!!
We spent Sunday evening decorating it & had so much fun. For me, it is always a walk down memory lane. We have the usual "Baby's First Christmas" ones & a set of "Marriage Tree" ones I was given at a wedding shower, but really our tree is made up of 3 categories of ornaments.
We have a family picture ornament every year since we have been married. I usually have to lay them all out in order to make sure I am not missing one & it is so fun to see how we have grown & changed & even aged over the years. It is bittersweet for me. Hopefully one day years from now we will have 50 picture ornaments documenting our family from day 1 through the years.
We have an ornament for all of the places we travel. Traveling is our big hobby. We will forgo presents to each other at birthdays & Christmas just to say "let's call Tahoe Christmas" or "count San Diego as our anniversary". We have "ornament" rules -- we must visit the place together & we must have stayed longer than 1 night. Just traveling through a city or country doesn't count. We had to have really seen & visited the place. The ornaments on our tree are such reminders of the amazing trips we've taken & the fun things we have seen & are such fun to talk about as we decorate our tree.
Lastly, we have special deployment ornaments for the Christmases that Soldier Man has been unable to be home with us. During his first deployment, a friend sent me an ornament over the holiday season that read"Half of my heart is in Iraq" with the year & his name on it. I loved it & preceded to order 2 more during his next 2 tours at the holiday time. Those ornaments serve as a reminder of his service, our sacrifice, & the blessing of having him with us still. I am very proud of those ornaments.
So, we took our walk down memory lane & loved it. The crazies ask lots of questions too about the ornaments so it was fun to explain things to them too.
D sniffing out trees at the tree farm
K picking out her tree
All loaded up! We looked like the Griswald's coming home!
Soldier Man unloading our tree
The men working the saw to fit it in the stand
K wanted a try
Hanging our ornaments on the tree
The 3 deployment ornaments
Some of our picture ornaments
And some of our travel ones... San Fran trip in '09
Hawaii in '06 & New Mexico in '12 on our way to CA
France in '11 during our European Vacation
No comments:
Post a Comment