Oh Christmas Tree

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Saturday we went out and got our tree, and now that it is up I am really starting to get into the spirit. Now I can start wrapping presents and unlike in years past when the kids were more of a menace, I can actually put them under the tree without the fear of them unwrapping them. Some families may look for quite a while for the "perfect" tree, even going to different places, but not us. We drove up the road to a tree farm, got out and almost the first tree the kids walked by "fell" on them. It didn't really fall as much as lean over onto them as they brushed by. They decided that it was a sign, the tree wanted to come home with us and be our tree. Dennis held it up and while I was still saying "hmmmm, maybe we should look over there" he had already picked it up and was starting to tie it to the top of the car. "Um, OK, I'll just go pay and we'll be on our way." When I was a little girl getting our tree was a big event that I looked forward to as one of the best parts of Christmas. I remember that we would bring it home, all wrapped up in twine and my father would set it up in the basement for the branches to "fall". It would have to stay down there, "falling" until the next day when we would be allowed to bring it upstairs and decorate it. That was torture to me, waiting. I would visit the tree in the basement, pushing on the branches, willing them to "fall." This may be why we decorate ours almost as soon as we get it home, no waiting, no falling required. Of course, our trees have never been wrapped up in twine, so that may be helpful. I used to play for hours under the tree. I would set my barbies up all under it, and they would "live" in the tree. I would lay under it and stare up at the lights, the way my kids do now and it is just such a wonder. A piece of nature that up until that point has been growing in the forest is now wrapped in lights, with ornaments hanging from it's branches, in our living room. It's kind of amazing when you think about it. Now that the kids are older they actually remember the ornaments from years past. We have quite a bit of "Baby's First Christmas" ones, or that have their names on them, and everyone has to hang up their own special ones. I love that we have special ornaments, just for us. I love that the kids get excited to see the little ornaments with their names on them, or that they have made in years past. You take them out of the box and although you had forgotten all about them for the past year, there they are again. They look the same as they did before, from a different time, on a different tree.

Our tree fell down that first night of course, spilling water all over the rug and sending ornaments flying this way and that. It crashed down as 65% of the trees in our married life have. I'm not sure why they always fall over, maybe it has something to do with the stand? Or perhaps it could be user error? I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just saying.