Christmas traditions….

It is getting to be Christmas, and we have has our first cold spell, so I was thinking of my traditions. One of my longest friends, http://felipsha.blogspot.com/ kina kickstarted me thinking! There are many many more in my families, but I wanted to post-as-I-go...

When I was little my dad would take me to the ranch to pick out a tree. Since these were 'real' in-the-wild cedar trees, they were a far stretch from being shaped like a Christmas tree. My dad never could tell me no, so we would end up with HUGE trees. (Yes, I say trees because there was usually more then one...because I couldnt decide until we got them in the house. On several occasions, the tree took up most of the living room and was to the top of the stairs!! I always thought the bigger the better and Dad's thinking was the tackier the better. He believes in nothing matching, lots of colors, garland and tons of tinsel!! Oh what fun.

Mom’s house and tree was quite opposite. All of the ornaments were dated, a new one each year, or they had a name or special memory of buying or making attached. Great care was taken for each and every memory. There were years that we had a theme. But that never meant buying all new ornaments to match the theme, it meant using the coordinating ornaments and décor. There are even certain ornaments that only I can put on the tree.

Every year when mom took the Christmas stuff down, she would write a note to put in with the Christmas stuff. So, when we were getting the Christmas stuff out, she would read about the year before.