Decorating The Tree

I have always loved decorating the Christmas tree.  I love my collection of ornaments that reflects my interests and activities over the years of my life.  I love that my husband has a coordinating collection.  I love that my kids are now growing their own.  I have always loved unwrapping each ornament, laying them all out to see and then picking my favorites to hang in what I determine to be the best location on the tree - the most visible to me, so that I can enjoy it as much as possible.

In recent years the clear ball holding a few flowers from my wedding bouquet has always received prime real estate.  Oranaments that are "just pretty," even if they are beautiful, tend to get pushed towards the back if they hold no meaning for me.

So you can imagine my utter joy when we began the process of decorating the tree this year - yes I had decided to be brave enough that this would be a full on family activity, not just one or two for the kids and then doing it my way.  As we began to unwrap the ornaments, amongst my near constant reminders to "be careful!" and "that one's glassy!" and "gentle, slow, wait!" to hear so many cries of "Oh mommy, look at this one!" and "aw this one's awesome!" and "Oh yeah, another Steeler!"  My children were excited to unwrap each one, to see what it would be, and to know where it came from or why we had it. 

Seriously, in my 5.5 years of mothering I have imagined a lot of picture perfect, Norman Rockwell type family events that have all blown up in my face because CHILDREN.  Toddlers.  Tantrums.  I had almost come to expect special events to turn sour, to prepare myself for disappointment.  But this, this was going so beautifully.  I couldn't have asked for more.
 

 

And so we laid them all out and we began picking our favorites and placing them in prime real estate.  My wedding ornament was one of the first in its spot, but this year the Steelers were all hung quite quickly as well.  And they were all clumped right at Sam's eye level.  The choo-choo, although not technically hers, was placed in a place where Annabelle was sure that she would be able to reach it every day.  There were a few less-than-beautiful sports items that were more prominently displayed than if I'd been decorating alone, but it turns out that's part of what makes it a family tree.  Those coordinating, glamorous trees are lovely, but I prefer ours any day.

It took a while, but our tree and my heart were full.  And next year there were be a few more hand made ornaments to add to the collection, along with: one boy's first football ornament of his own (Ohio State!), a Wii remote, a princess castle, an artists' palette for our little painter, and a picture frame that reads "Kindergarten."  And a few more memories to go with them.