Decorating the Tree

Tonight we finished decorating our tree. Last night we took the family on an outing to "find" our tree...hidden in a corner in our basement, hauled it upstairs, and in 10 minutes flat had the sucker put together. It truly doesn't get much better. Light a pine-scented candle and no one is the wiser.





This year was a little more fun decorating with the kids. Yes, they are still grabbing at every single ornament they can find (I did get smart last year and packed them away by degree of breakability - score 1 for me). The bottom half of the tree is theirs to freely decorate (a.k.a lump ornaments together, stack one on top of the other) and the top is mine to tastefully finish. So please only look from the middle up if you desire to view the "grown-up" version of the tree.




In past years I've tried telling the kids about some of the ornaments that are being put up. Daddy gave this one to me before we were married. One of Mommy's friends from high school gave me these. Mommy made this when she was 10 and it used to hang on Oma and Opa's tree. In years past it's all fallen on deaf ears. They truly could have cared less. But tonight they were actually interested in seeing which ones were "theirs" - Laurianna's baby ornament, McKenna's special ornament when she asked Jesus into her heart, the ornament Rick and I painted on our honeymoon.




And then it hit me. Someday, our kids are going to take their ornaments with them to their own houses to share them with their children. So strange. I could hold onto them (the ornaments, that is) forever (the kids too!!)...but what fun would that be? Someday our tree will be "ours" again and it will just be Rick and I decorating it, but I'm sure we'll miss the cluttered chunks of ornaments adorning the tree. Or miss finding ornaments that little hands have pulled off the tree and hidden under the couch. But in the years to come, as we continue the tradition of decorating together as a family, the kids will start remembering the stories behind each of the ornaments and it will be fun to continue sharing with them. Even more fun will be in sharing in the traditions that they carry on in their families and be a part of the new ones that make their family special.