OHHH Christmas Tree!!!

The tree is up!  Later than usual this year because of Bentley's christening, but it's up.  Usually I pick it out but Baby B was sick so I sent Christopher out with the instructions...fraser fir, thick and full...and it is!  It's a real fatty this year.  Bentley took part in the festivities, watching Daddy put the lights on the tree (see him sitting in the chair?)...it was VERY exciting for him...

Here's the BIG BOY all done up.  I have yet to get a tree topper, I usually just do a big bow or something...this year I tied a big piece of burlap around the top, and I tied some burlap & jute around some of the branches.  I also sprinked it with fake snow.  I also need a tree skirt - I LOVE the faux fur one from West Elm but couldn't make the splurge this year.  Instead I took some white fabric I had laying around and wrapped it around the bottom and put some of the cotton-like fake snow around it.

We have SO many ornaments, and I love that a lot of them we have collected over the years, as well as many together.

We have some childhood ornaments.  Chris has his baby rattle on the tree every year, and this year we added a clothes pin reindeer he made when he was about 4 years old.  I have a snowman carousel (I LOVE snowmen!) from when I was only 1, as well as a hand painted goose egg ornament from my Uncle/Godfather that he gave me when I was 2 years old.  We have several other glass ornaments that we've inherited from our parents' trees as well, it's fun taking them out every year.

I also have a couple of very cherished ornaments.  I have one that my Gram, who lived with me for my entire life until she passed away my Senior year of high school, made for me in 1988 when I was 7 years old.  I also have a couple of those porcelain/clay-like ornaments that you can handpaint ~ my Dad calls me "Angel" so I have a small angel he painted for me when I was little, as well as a snowman he did for me. 

Every year our parents still buy us ornaments, too.  We have some nice personalized Lenox ones from my parents that mark the first Christmas in our new home in 2006, as well as our first Christmas married that same year.  I love shells so my Mum has found some really nice glass shell ornaments, and lots of snowmen, they are so pretty and add some sparkle to the tree.  And Auntie Diane always picks out an ornament or two for us every year. 

When we got Hurley, my Mum naturally had to start looking for bulldogge ornaments.  We have a couple of cute glass ones, and Chris' Mom picked up a hand painted wooden one from the Cape where the little bulldogge is sitting in front of a lighthouse.

This year we are starting to accumulate some of Bentley's first ornaments as well! 

I also have 20+ years worth of Disney ornaments that had gone on our tree at Mum & Dad's every year until we bought our home.  I started doing a separate tree for them at the top of our stairs, and last year was the first time I didn't put it together (preggers & sick...).  I am not putting it up this year but next Christmas I think I will start a new tradition and put it up in Bentley's room.

I love putting up the tree every year (OK, so I guess the hubby technically puts it up and I decorate...) and it smells SO good.  The hubby does the lights and I do most of the ornaments.  He claims it is "tradition" that he (like his Dad) does the lights so he doesn't have to decorate the whole tree and he'll do an ornament or two.  He doesn't want to mess up the tradition in his family! ;)  Either way, its all decorated, smells great, and I love looking at it all lit up, especially at night - very festive around here!

~E