O Tannenbaum

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches....

You'd think this would be my favorite Christmas carol with my love of Christmas trees, but it isn't. But I do love Christmas trees!! I don't know when exactly I decided that Christmas trees were meant to be color coordinated, but about 20 years ago I bought decorations for a red and white tree. This was also the first year we had our fake tree (we still had a live tree, but it was the hodge podge tree). I made bows from red ribbon, bought red and white matte ornaments and a few little, shiny red ornaments, added some gold bead garland, and voila, my first "prissy" tree (that's what it was dubbed since it was color coordinated). It wasn't the most beautifully decorated tree, but I truly loved it.

Two years later, I decided we needed a new color scheme and so I bought purple and gold ornaments, made gold bows that had gold bells hanging from them, and bought a couple boxes of small, clear ornaments that I filled with shiny, purple shred, purple bead garland, and purple cellophane (each ornament was tied at the top with a purple bow). Now I had really arrived in the Christmas tree world - each year I could CHOOSE which color combination I wanted.

And yet, a few years later the need for another color came knocking and so I added green - I found several ornament sets that include matte and shiny balls in forest green and sage green, plus a few white ornaments with snowy, white trees made from glitter on them to go with the white and gold ornaments I already had. Oh, life was good!

Now keep in mind that through all these years this tree was still referred to as the prissy tree, but I didn't mind, it was MY prissy tree :)

Jump forward a few years (four years ago). K and J were at a local furniture store that during Christmas time has amazing Christmas decorations. I don't know what happened, but they fell in love with a "prissy" tree and decided that we needed to have that look. Then they went to another store and there was the perfect tree with earthy colors such as orange, red, gold, browns, and more. But our trees were already decorated for the year, so instead we threw ourselves into the task of buying decorations for next year's tree. The other difference was that the decorations were not all balls, but were instead a large variety of shapes and sizes, that when combined created a stunning tree. We talked to the decorators at the furniture store and they shared some wonderful tips so that by the following Christmas, we had a new tree, new ornaments, and a plan.

I have to admit I was scared to death. What if I couldn't create the tree that we had in our minds?? But after hours of studying tree decorating and looking at trees in some of our favorite stores, I threw my heart and soul into the project and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. I had managed to create the tree that we loved so much in the stores, only it was ours!

Since that Christmas three years ago, we haven't looked back. Trees that in the past were totally acceptable now have higher decorating expectations. But it's so fun! It's fun to decorate, fun to admire, and something I don't think I'll ever tire of doing. Christmas would not be complete without a Christmas tree (or two or three or.....).

Merry Christmas!