If you remember back to the Day after Wednesday, there was much debate in our house about what to do about Christmas. I was totally for ignoring the holiday. Only putting enough effort in to give our families and friends gifts, but not enough to make our home show that there was a holiday approaching. I didn’t win the debate.
And I’m glad I didn’t. We took things one step at a time. We started with the outdoor decorations. It has been tradition that Jenn and I would go to Kmart after Day after Wednesday dinner and pick out a new yard animal. We had our hearts set on an elephant. The Kmart one was wayyyy over priced. S thankfully pointed out that Michael’s had one one sale. And we got her. Please take this video tour of our yard Christmas display:
(why yes, I did fall off the curb at the end there, have I never mentioned that I am a klutz before?)
It was a tossup what to name the elephant. Did we name her Hannah knowing that I call them hannahunts? But we decided Eloise the Elephant was a more accepted sentiment.
Our first Christmas tree was my favorite Christmas tree ever. We were beyond broke. I went out and bought a string of 50 white lights and stapled them to a spot on our wall in the shape of a tree. It was so cute 🙂
Since then we have used fake trees. I hate fake trees. When my family started using fake trees I even went so far as to hide some of the branches under my bed thinking my mom would just give up and go buy a real tree. It didn’t work.
Jenn and I decided that we would save a little money and use fake trees…until there was a child in the house. We didn’t want our children to know of fake trees. We wanted the fun tradition of going out and cutting them down. Drinking hot chocolate and eating chocolate chip cookies. Last year on my favorite holiday-December 26th…Christmas sale shopping day-we bought a tree stand. I was pregnant, safely in the 2nd trimester, there would be a baby next Christmas and we needed a real tree stand.
But with no baby…what should we do? We still wanted to do the real tree. But we kept putting it off. We just weren’t ready. Taking it a step at a time was good for us.
One day on the way home from the hospital I saw a tree lit up in someone’s front window and started bawling. I want a tree, I cried to Jenn. Okay, we will get one. But I want a blue tree. Okay, you want a blue spruce…you got it.
No. I want blue lights and blue ornaments and a blue skirt. A Blue tree. Jenn thought it was a brilliant idea. I went shopping the next night for all the things we would need. I bought balls of different shades of blue and some glittery, and different sizes…I bought blue lights…I bought it all.
Sunday we went out and find our tree. Again taking this a step at a time we didn’t go out and cut it down ourselves or drink hot chocolate or eat cookies. We found a lot and found the most perfect tree. In the sun the bottoms of the needles shown blue. It was the perfect height, and perfect width and just plain perfect.
Now…we have no experience with real trees. Neither of us ever really paid attention when our dads put up the real tree. Had no idea what to do. This created much laughter.
The tree kept falling over. Instead of helping Jenn I laughed until I cried and then took pictures.
We finally got it all figured out and began decorating it.
And if I do say so myself…we have the most beautiful Christmas tree ever.
Blue’s Christmas tree:
Thinking Miracles 