An Old Tradition Returns

This year I've thought about my childhood Christmases growing up.  I have had several conversations with different people about what Christmas was like growing up.

As a kid I always assumed that Christmas looked the same for everyone.  

Presents were exchanged between brothers and sisters and mom and dad on Christmas Eve after a full day of Christmas fun at Mommom's with all the aunts and uncles and cousins.

My brother always slept with me on Christmas Eve.  It was my duty as his older sister to make sure he stayed in the room and didn't catch Santa in the act.

We woke up bright and early on Christmas morning and sat on the couch staring at our gifts until it was an acceptable time to wake up Mom and Dad.

Santa filled the stockings with candies and little toys.  Occasionally the stocking would give away one of the gifts under the tree.  Film in the stocking was a dead give away that Santa brought you a new camera that year.

Santa came on Christmas morning.  He wrapped the presents and used different paper for each child.  There was one big gift that was not wrapped.

You take turns opening presents.  The youngest gets to go first.  This lets you see what everyone receives.

We still open presents in that order.

One of my favorite traditions growing up was having a real Christmas tree.  I don't really remember ever going and picking out a tree or even decorating it really, but I loved having a real tree.  My mom told me this year we always had a real tree growing up because we were poor.  We would go out in the woods and find the perfect tree and then Daddy would chop it down.

I wish I remembered those outings.

I remember one year we had Christmas at my Aunt Tammy's house.  She had an artificial tree.  Seth and I thought this was SO WRONG!   We did not understand why we would have Christmas at her house when she didn't even have a real tree.

Sorry, Aunt Tammy.

We love you despite your artificial trees.


When I was in 7th grade my parents built their house and we got an artificial tree for the first time. 

I've had an artificial tree ever since.

For the past couple of years Andrew and I have talked about getting a real tree.  I LOVE our artificial tree but there is something about having a real tree that is special.

We finally did it this year.

Because we knew Andrew was going out of town for work this month we had to get our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving or we would have to wait until this past weekend.

It was raining all Thanksgiving weekend.

The tree farm was a muddy mess.

We had so much fun looking in the rain, hunting for the perfect tree.

And then we found it.

They chopped it down and we loaded it up in the truck to bring home.

I will say this is the fastest our tree has ever gone up.

I love laying in the living room looking at our tree.  This year I am also enjoying the smell of our tree.

It smells like Christmas.