Christmas Trees Past

2009

2006

I've had this tree since college when we couldn't very well put a real tree in the room.  So, now it gets to be our funky tree.  It gets the big, colorful LED lights, and the Cotswold angel that I made after visiting Anne in Oxford.  I do love my fragile angel.  Her body is a wool spool and her hair is the wool; both were gotten when we visited a sheep farm there.  The ornaments on this tree are mismatched, made by tiny hands or given to us by special friends. The garland or tinsel is chosen year by year by the kids.  I'm loving this tinsel this year. We always set this tree up on or just before the feast day of St. Nicholas.

2009

This is my tree.  This tree gets only white lights. All of the ornaments match and are red, silver, gold, or white, with the exception of two.  I hide a green pickle somewhere and put a pewter nail in the back.  This angel came from an antique store in Slidell.  She wasn't actually an antique, but she did remind me of the angel that sat atop my parents' Christmas tree every year of my childhood.  She has a porcelain head, gold fabric wings, and a mesh skirt.  When we stay home for Christmas, this tree gets set up on Christmas Eve.  That's our concession for not celebrating Christmas during the Nativity Fast.  When we plan to go out of town, though, I get to set it up earlier so I can enjoy it for some length of time.

2006

Obviously, this tree is not in our home, but I was responsible for it.  This tree marked the first year that we stayed in Chicago for Christmas instead of traveling to visit family.  I was flabbergasted that Holy Trinity didn't have a Christmas tree.  It's such a pretty church, and it needed a pretty tree.  Of course, the reason it never had one was because it was actually quite controversial.  Nonetheless, I got the archbishops approval and we donated the tree.  Several other rather new converts donated ornaments and we the Saturday afternoon before Christmas decorating it.  We weren't allowed to turn the lights on except when "no one" was in church because it would be a fire hazard...  It looked amazing when the lights were on, though.  I remember how much fun the children had helping us decorate the lower half, too.

2007

This is my parents' tree.  The angel is pretty new; the one from my childhood broke sometime around the end of my high school years.  The tree is always a fat one.  The ornaments are always mismatched and most are very old, the lights are big, colorful bulbs, and there is usually much more tinsel.  I think my mother must have decorated it alone this year because she's the one who has to undecorate it, and I don't think she ever really liked the amount of tinsel we used.  This tree brings back many memories, though.  My father would sit on the sofa while all the girls decorated the tree.  Sometimes we'd let him watch TV.  Other times he was forced to listen to Christmas music with us.  We were always loud, and at least one ornament broke every year.  Those were good times.