Our Tree Of Memories

I’m sure by now loads of you that have your Christmas tree’s decorated and I personally love nothing more than walking down the street admiring them glistening and shining from the windows- it gives me a such a warm Christmassy feel! Nowadays though I am also able get my ‘fix’ by simply scrolling through Facebook and viewing endless pictures of newly erected tree perfection – don’t get me wrong I too have posted my own tree on my Facebook page and I do love admiring them!

Last year a comment from my teenager stuck with me when she asked why our tree couldn’t be like everyone else’s (also saying it looked like someone had thrown up on it!). Rather than take offence I actually accepted this as a bizarre form of compliment. Yes our tree isn’t the same as all those colour co-ordinated trees and nowhere close to the magazine perfect ones that I admire, but is it personal to our family.

Firstly, being limited on space we have always had to have one of the ‘weedy’ looking trees that are quite tall and thin or we would be craning our necks to view the TV for the whole of December. Of course ideally I would LOVE a full on bushy tree, but unless we can suddenly afford to build an extension we have to realistic.

Secondly, we DO NOT have a colour theme or in fact a theme of any sort! Our ornaments are a true mix match of various surviving ‘part’ sets we have owned over the years, ranging from the traditional gold’s and reds to disco ball shaped pink ones, a strange golden apple (not sure where this even came from) and a couple of random black ones?

These are accompanied by a whole host of personal decorations from over the years – toilet rolls transformed into Christmassy items that the children have made through the years, handmade salt dough decorations, a decoration each from the year the children were born, a gorgeous handprint bauble that the little one made for his first Christmas, a decoration that was bought on my first Christmas 30+ years ago (Mr Men decoration) and many more of the same ilk.

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My favourite though is the small stocking that proudly hangs on my tree every year in memory of a dear friend. Given to me by my friends Mum as a gift on our first Christmas without her in remembrance I make sure that’s exactly what we do. I ensure it takes centre stage at the front of the tree for all to see and it makes me smile remembering the good times we shared.

Add to that a couple of strings of multi-coloured lights, some randomly sized and coloured tinsel and a shed load of hanging chocolates – carefully clustered at the top of the tree to avoid little fingers prising the foil open and ‘accidentally’ eating them!- and our masterpiece is finished.

Of course it mustn’t be forgotten that the decorations are usually haphazardly placed by the children –until Mr F with his OCD (Obsessive Christmas Disorder) comes along to re-adjust! I know that having a tree that looks so unorganised isn’t to everyone’s tastes, but for us it’s a perfect tree of memories.

Feel free to tell us all about your family Christmas tree below, What kind of tree and decorations do you have? Do you have a theme?