Oh Christmas Tree

Oh, Christmas tree, how lovely are those big bright bulbs!  The way I see it, you're either a white lights person or a colored lights person.

As you can see, I'm of the colored lights variety, with a string or two of little white lights for extra sparkle.  Don't get me wrong, I can completely appreciate the classic, elegant look of all white lights, in fact my Advent wreath has quite a muted palette.  But, I do like to use Christmas for an excuse to get all colorful and sparkly.

We usually get a tree at a local farm, and this year we chose a new place.  We followed some signs off of a familiar road, and came across a quaint little spot where you cut down your own tree.  At first we walked around a while, searching out the perfect tree.  Elsie was very discriminating.

 She liked this little Charlie Brown number.

 We chose the perfect tree for us (about 7' tall, with a good number of gaps and spaces for ornaments to hang) and borrowed the farmer's chain saw.   Love that intensity!

 And that smile!

  Here's the tree set up at home, pre decorating.  All of those spaces between the branches allow me to hang ornaments and lights throughout the entire tree, not just on the tips of the branches.  This creates such depth and interest!

And the decorating supplies:

 That's a grand total of 10 strings of lights!  And last, but certainly not least:

I've been watching Love Actually while I decorate for the last several years.  It just gets me in the Christmas mood!  This year I turned on the Director's Commentary, which was quite enlightening and entertaining.

Oh, and my furry helpers were on hand:

Charlie LOVES Christmas for this reason

Billie was less than helpful

Anyway, lots of folks seem to go with color themes for their trees (i.e. red and white or gold and silver) or location themes (i.e. beach or mountains) for their tree, but I look at it differently.  Rather than trimming the tree from a decorator's perspective, I prefer to go at it from more of a nostalgic angle.  We have so many beautiful ornaments that have been collected over the years and were given or purchased with meaning, to represent a special event or time in our lives.  If I worried about matching them all, the meaning and memories would be lost.

And, it's fun to take little trinkets or gifts from the year and turn them into ornaments.  That's a great way to save something special, without keeping it out all year long. Just add an ornament hook, and you're set!

So, I like to start with putting a string of lights right up the trunk of the tree.  It creates depth and really makes the tree glow from the inside.

Then I just go to town, mixing string types and bulb sizes, and just load the tree up.

Next up, ornaments.  Here are some of my faves:

Smocked by Mom, with a Billie ornament in the background

My Grandmother helped me make this as a child.

Mom made several beautiful butterflies for me when I attended Happening, they later became ornaments.

A gift from Summer ages ago!

Beautiful cut glass little tree

A pic from our wedding

Another exquisite butterfly

A childhood friend made this stained glass one

Do you spy the pickle?

We typically add an ornament each year, to commemorate something special.  We haven't yet chosen one for this year, but surely we'll find the perfect something to represent that little cutie patootie who joined our family.

So there's a glimpse of our Christmas tree.  It reminds me of my Grandparents' trees from back in the day.  Happy and colorful and packed with memories.  Are you a colored or white lights kid?  Do you go with themes?  Get a new ornament each year?  Hide a pickle?

Join the tree party over at ThriftyDecorChick.