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Sunday, December 7, 2008

Christmas trees....present and past

We finally decorated Graeme's first Christmas tree last night. We started the process a week ago when we pulled out our beautiful prelit Christmas tree, set it up, plugged it in and the bottom half didn't light. Wes and I both worked on the lights changing fuses and bulbs.. no luck it still didn't light. So with the busy week ahead the tree sat until the cancellation of Lily's Nutcracker performance yesterday. Have you ever tried to take lights off of a prelit tree? It took me over 20 minutes to remove one strand of the lights. So after some not so nice words said under my breath and dealing with the scratches on both hands, a new plan was devised. I just put new lights on top of the ones that weren't working. Otherwise, this tree would not get decorated until next year.


People ask if he smiles like this all the time and yes, pretty much he does. His preschool teacher sent a note home that they are amazed that the muscles in his face don't hurt from smiling.

Lily also enjoyed decorating the tree!

He worked so hard to find the perfect spot for each ornament.

As a result, the bottom of the tree is definately more decorated than the top.

Lily had to sneak and rearrange a lot of his ornaments. Too Funny!

We all had a good time.
This morning I grabbed the camera to take a pic of our tree and Graeme jumped off the couch and posed. He is so proud of his tree.
So I was already feeling nostalgic about decorating Graeme's first tree. We continue to decorate it with flowers that were used at our wedding reception (13 years ago). Then I saw the Christmas tree post on my bloggy friend, Cora's blog and it just got me thinking of Christmas trees past.
Years ago, I dated someone briefly that worked on a Christmas tree farm. He convinced my family that we had to have a live tree. Thus the tradition started. I would go with my Dad and the dogs to the farm to find the perfect tree. Dad always wanted to get the tree that the dogs "blessed" with their "attention". This produced some pretty strange looking trees over the years. I still love the smell of a fresh tree and it reminds me of these trips with Dad.
One year when I was in college, we needed two trees...one for the family house and one for my apartment. After we got home, we put the tree in the backyard until we were ready to decorate it. At some point on this windy day, the tree was blown into the swimming pool. I looked out and told Dad but he simply stated that maybe it needed a drink of water. I went out to fish it out of the pool. Mom came home from shopping and we all decorated the tree but never mentioned to her what had happened. A week later the needles started to fall off of the tree and by Christmas....well, it was the biggest, brownest Charlie Brown tree I ever saw. Mom commented that she could not figure it out because the tree at my apartment looked so nice and green. Years later we finally told her what had happened. I love the memories of those "special" times with Dad! Thanks Cora for reminding me of the trees of my past!

11 comments:

Faith, Hope, and Love said...

Graeme sure did a nice job on his "first" Christmas tree!! Very beautiful!!!

FHL said...

Your tree looks gorgeous and your kiddos as cute as always! We have a pre-lit that seems to lose another section each year. So far we've been able to keep the bad parts to the back....but each year we wonder what we'll see when we turn it on.

Melody and Brian said...

Those children know to go into pose mode when they see a camera. It is the cutest thing ever......They are both such sweet children. The tree is beautfiul too.

Kelley said...

I love those pictures--your children both have such terrific smiles! Sorry about the lights that wouldn't light. (We had that problem too, and I'm just ignoring it.) Prelit trees are not as convenient as I thought they would be! Your tree really turned out beautifully!

Kristin said...

So glad the kids had fun with the tree!! We just did ours today.

Your post made me giggle---about the trees that have been blessed. It goes right along with my post tonight!

Ah, memories. Aren't they wonderful?

Anonymous said...

The tree is stunning, but it is the smile of Graeme that lights up this post! GORGEOUS!

frogglet said...

Love the tree, it is beautiful. The kids look so happy to be decorating the tree.
Love your story, I can totally related to live tree stories :0).
We are having light issues too. All the lights are on our artifical tree do we buy more or take them off the other tree?

marybob143@aol.com said...

This is such a fun time of year!!! Your beautiful children are lucky to have you help create wonderful memories they'll remember forever! Your tree is so very pretty! I can't wait to hear what Lily & Graeme want for Christmas! Graeme's expressions should be priceless on his first visit from Santa!!!
Merry Christmas,
Mary, Bob & family

Waitingfaithfully said...

Beautiful babies, beautiful tree! Lovin' the smiles!

We decided to leave the pre-lit tree in the box this year and go back to the good smelling kind . . . It's a blog post in the making . . . not like the tree cutting experiences I remember growing up in snowy Michigan . . . Can you say Texas? Hot. Dusty. Like I said, a post waiting to be written--as soon as I catch-up on my commenting!

Blessings~

Tina

Yoli said...

Your children are just so beautiful and those smiles just melt my heart. Great tree!

Kristy said...

Oh Margaret I love those smiles!!!! And your tree is absolutely beautiful! Still working on mine!
Love, Kristy