Tuesday Tell All - O Christmas Tree

Better late than never....and with far too many details than are necessary, but it's mostly for me and our little family, so pardon the indulgence. :)
This is the first year we've had what you would probably consider a real (yet fake) Christmas Tree. Our first Christmas we were living above the garage of Truman and Ann Madsen in a little studio apartment. We didn't have much space for a Christmas tree and we didn't have any money either, so we enjoyed the Christmas trees of our parents and also the Madsen's beautiful Christmas tree, when we would occasionally go to visit them. (They invited us to help them address their Christmas cards for some extra money, but we declined... I think because we were too busy with finals). One day when we went to give them our rent check Brother Madsen asked us if we would like to stay and chat and help him complete the Christmas puzzle he was working on. We had our swimming suits on and were out the door to take a dip in the pool, so again we declined the offer. Now, when we see either of them giving a lecture of some kind on tv, we wonder, "Why we didn't take advantage of great learning opportunities like those." My dad use to tease that we were gaining knowledge through osmosis by living with them. I wish!

The second year we were married, we lived in a home that Joe's parents owned off of Canyon Road on 2120 N. in Provo. It was a nice home they updated for us and we loved living in it. I had graduated and was teaching school and Joe was working at the MTC part-time and going to BYU full-time. We saved most of my paycheck because we wanted to start our family soon, and we wanted to have enough saved so that when a baby did come, we would be prepared to have me stay at home and live on Joseph's wages from his part-time job at the MTC. We visited a few Christmas tree lots and after seeing that the kind of tree we wanted would cost us about $70.00, we decided to forego getting a tree. Until.....I attended a craft fair with my mom at Timpview High School and I found a 7 foot skinny Alpine tree for a steal of a deal. My mom talked me into the purchase and we took the tree home.

We didn't have any decorations, so Joseph and I went to Robert's Craft and picked up some wooden shapes of stars, hearts and pine trees, craft wire, paint and spray glitter. One Saturday night we sat at the table and talked and talked as we painted the shapes. It was so much fun! I am craft-challenged, but I love to create so these types of simple projects always give me a sense of satisfaction. When we had finished painting, we let them dry and then wrote the words "faith" on the pine trees, "hope" on the stars, and "charity" on the hearts. We then sprayed them with gold glitter, drilled a whole in the top, wrapped craft wire around and pencil, and looped the wire through the shapes, to finish them up we tied them with raffia and hung them on our tree. We had read Elder Nelson's conference talk about Charity and felt that his talk was the theme for our tree. It was really fun! (I'll post pictures of those ornaments when I can get to them.)

We kept that tree for 6 Christmases. It was our tree all through law school and it worked great in our tiny apartments. This year I think we may still put it in the girls bedroom, we chose not to hang the ornaments on our big tree, but maybe after a new paint job we will hang a few on it.

Joseph always grew up with a giant real tree and I had a real tree for a few years and then we started using an artificial tree. We briefly talked about what we should do, and decided that we would do an artificial tree. We went to Costco to pick up a 7 foot tree and when we got there, we realized that it may look shrimpish with 10 foot ceilings, so we ended up getting the 9 foot tree. We bought the tree on November 17th, and I thought we would wait until after Thanksgiving to put it up, but while I was at the grocery store later that afternoon, Joseph and the kids put it up in the living room. I must admit that when I saw it I thought it was way too big! He had it in the middle of the floor to begin with and it is 5-6 feet in diameter. Once he pushed it against the wall it started to look better. The best part is that it's pre-lit! Yeah! (Hopefully it will stay lit)!

We went with simple bulbs this year. (Aaron throws them around the house like a baseball). I have no eye for decorating and it was so hard to decide what to do with the tree. At first I bought gold bulbs and then realized that the new tree skirt and stockings we purchased would possibly look better with silver. Oh, what do I know? I asked those in my family who are more gifted in the area of decorating and they said it was okay to mix my metals! So I did! We have gold, silver, and red bulbs and some green sparkly things as well. I plan to do some more with blue, since our tree skirt has lots of blue in it. I think we did okay. We'll add more of a special touch each year.

Joe and Brynn admiring their work.

Joe loves to turn on the lights and then lay under the tree with the kids and look up at all the lit up branches.

This is an ornament Joseph mom sent him when we was on his mission. If you can't tell it's a lighthouse.
This ornament was one she included in a Christmas gift for me while Joseph was on his mission and I was at BYU.
We've started a tradition of giving the kids a new ornament each year. This year we let them choose. This is what Brynn and Abby chose for Aaron.

Abby chose a group of sparkly green snowflakes for her ornament.
Brynn chose the reindeer.
This is an ornament that Amber, a girl I cheered with at Ricks made for everyone on the Spirit Team. I've always thought it was cute and it reminds me of my fun memories of Ricks and cheering up there. .

And our stocking story is long, but I'll include it here as well. I have a funny story to tell about these. Joseph and I have coordintaed stockings we received before we were married. When Brynn was born we purchased her a stocking but when we got home we realized it was going in the opposite direction than our stockings. We put it up for that year and then when Abby was born we let both girls use our stockings and we didn't have any. The Christmas after Aaron was born we were living with my parents and so we didn't pull our stockings out. This year we decided that we needed to get some stockings. I labored over the thought because being the all-or-nothing that I can be sometimes, I wanted to wait until we knew that our family was complete so that we could all have matching stockings. Joe didn't want to wait, stockings were a big deal at his house, I guess :) So I found some stockings I liked at Pottery Barn Kids and I let the kids pick out which one they wanted. Again I debated about how many I should buy, the clerk told me that their stockings are different each year, but generally they are similar colors and so they would probably go well together if I bought some at a later date. I bought three. I took them home and showed them to Joe and he said, "I love them, but where are our's?" So while I was in Utah for Thanksgiving he called me from PBKids to ask me which other stockings he should buy and that he was going to buy extras for any more children we might have. He asked, "How many more do you think I should buy?" I replied, "I don't know, how many more children do you think we will have, just buy that many." I was anxious to go home to see how many extra he bought...... We hung the stockings for each of us and we are saving the extras until we need them. We had to laugh, if only deciding when to take on another life were as easy as picking stockings. I have to admit, I think I am going to go buy one more stocking when they go on sale....just in case! :)

We hung the stockings from our bookshelf instead of the fireplace for fear that Aaron would pull on them and the stocking holders would crack the tile. Our star stocking holders (on the end) we bought our first year of marriage and we haven't been able to find anything exactly like them that we liked. When I first found this PEACE, I saw it in silver and thought it would have to do. I was thrilled to see that they had it in bronze because it totally works with the stars! Now we just need to work on dressing up the backdrop a little. I totally need help in this department.

We've been in small apartments so long, we're realizing it takes alot to make the house feel like it's filled with Christmas.....decoration wise, atleast. Isn't it great that even with a simple tree you can still feel the sweet magical spirit of Christmas. Sometimes the simplicity helps me to focus more on the true spirit of the season. But, I'm stil looking forward to adding a little here and there each year.