Oh Christmas Tree..

oh Christmas tree, with faithful leaves unchanging!

The Holidays

I love the holidays! Well, I love the days up until the holidays. The decorations, the lights, the preparation, the shopping... I love it all! One of my favorite parts of Christmas is getting a Christmas tree and putting up Christmas lights. My parents almost always had a fake tree when I was growing up, and on a couple Christmas' when I was in college and came home for the holidays I went with a friend to bring a real tree home!  Other years when my time home was limited and no one had the energy to pull the fake tree out, I'd decorate something else instead. One year it was a potted plant, another year the TV and stand. (Sad, I know.) My BFF Garley usually did the same, and we both laughed over one year where we both decorated a plant until collapse ... and then sheepishly undecorated said plant. haha!

A Tree of My Own

As soon as I had my own apartment I of course got my own Christmas tree! Both of my parents gave me my childhood ornaments years ago which I happily added to MY very own tree. I loved it! I had a tree every year in Arizona and was so sad when I first moved to SD and realized that my original, tiny apartment couldn't hold a Christmas tree of any size. I was looking for "city living" and liked it, but really - you are sooo limited by a "modern/modular" 500 square foot apartment. This year when I moved into my new 1000 square foot place, I knew I'd have to get a tree!
 

This past Sunday I went to Home Depot to pick out a tree. I selected a lovely 6 foot Douglas Fir, picked it up and brought it to the line to check out, judged the guys with their trees in a cart while I carried mine (booyah - I'm strong!), and then secured it to the top of my car with my string-tying skills and brought it home. A part of me felt bad about furthering an industry that cuts down trees to let them die ... but my only other option was to buy a fake tree which I had no room to store and I'd have to donate after the holidays also contributing to waste. At least there are tree recycling programs in San Diego - I looked!

 

Decorating the tree was a lot of fun. Adding ornaments which I've had since my childhood is really special, and one of my favorite things in the year. My Aunt Elsa used to send me ornaments each year when I was a child, and my favorite ornament of all time is from her .. the Cabbage Patch Kid doll! The ornament of course matches the real Cabbage Patch Kid doll that I had named Jean Georganne. I loved her!
 

Some of my other favorite ornaments are ones that my dad got over the years that I remember adding to our tree for the first time. The gold house and the ship in a ball are two of my favorites! The newest ornament to the collection of those with my name is the sand dollar from Garley from 2005. Wow, how does that seem so long ago?

The most recent ornament that I actually bought was my 26.2 ornament. Marathon time!

This Christmas tree which I have decorated at home isn't just my first tree at home in San Diego, its my first tree at work in San Diego as well! I've had a mini tree that I've put on my desk for the past 10 years, and for the past two years its stayed in a box because my previous company banned any Christmas decorations in the office. Yes, seriously. No comment. This year I'm at a new job with  no such restrictions! The tree came out of the box! And yes, ti has lights! It sits on my desk just to the right of my computer monitor and makes me smile all throughout the day.
 

I love Christmas and all of the decoration, and hope that you were able to set up your own festive decorations as well this week. Let the Christmas season begin!