"There's a Tree in the Grand Hotel. One at the Parks' as Well."

In years past, I have stressed and fretted about the placement of the ornaments on our Christmas tree.  I have redone what my children have done all in the name of balance and order, only to have all my efforts of the initial decorating night thwarted throughout the month by having to re-hang nearly every ornament two feet and lower over and over again.

This year I determined to be different.  I would simply let the children hang the ornaments where they may, not worrying about having too many of the same color in one location or nagging them to move ones that were too close together.  The end result was a more enjoyable night of decorating and a more "organic" decorative look to the tree.  It makes me smile, now, every time I look at the long strand of red ornaments that were practically put on top of each other.  I am satisfied to know that the bulk of the ornaments are at the eye-level of my children. I think this will be the first year that, to my children, decorating the tree will have been a fun occasion as opposed to a chore.  At least it will be for me.

Took me long enough to figure it out, though, didn't it?

Jason noticed a lack of ornaments near the top of the tree and offered his services to the children.  He would lift them up on his shoulder and they would place the ornament in the empty spaces.  With each child, save for one, the scenario played out exactly the same.  They were completely panicked when he first lifted them up.  Panic was quickly replaced with absolute joy at getting to put an ornament up so high.

Only one child never had a hesitation of being hoisted up upon Jason's shoulder.  She enjoyed the experience from start to finish.

And yes, Jason, we are hanging every single ornament that we have on the tree!

Now, doesn't the tree look lovely?

This post authored by Amber

Ta Da! Our Tannenbaum

Normally this bad boy goes up the weekend following Thanksgiving, but for some reason this year it did not make it out of the garage until the calendar had already been turned over to December. 

When I brought up all of the ornaments from downstairs, Jason kept asking, "You're not going to put all those on, are you?"  Well, the thing is like twenty feet tall (9 ft. actually), and since we've got 'em we might as well use 'em.  Besides, the more ornaments on the tree, the more Ella and Garrett can try to knock off over the course of the season.  Maybe it wasn't so bad that the tree didn't make an earlier debut.  As it is, I have hung each ornament at least twenty times and my front room is dusted with assorted red and gold glitters.  Boy, am I glad we swapped out the glass ornaments for the shatterproof!

And now, please enjoy these lovely hold absolutely still and pose as if you're decorating the tree so mom can play with the shutter speed on her camera pictures.

Weren't those photographs nice?  They evoke a feeling of peaceful, hushed reverence for the Christmas season, all warm, soft, and cozy.

Now, please enjoy the actual in the moment, teetering from precarious heights, fighting over the step ladder, and if we survive the process of decorating the tree without major incident it'll be a miracle pictures.

These photos evoke kind of a different feeling, but it's Christmas all the same, and it's fabulous! This really is the most wonderful time of the year!

This post authored by Amber

While I was growing up, I distinctly remember that one of my favorite elements of Christmastime was the decorations. Now that I'm older, and primarily responsible for getting said decorations in their place and keeping them from the clutches of a nineteen month-old baby, I've had to reconsider. But then, on a whim, I started to take photographs of our decorations so our family would have a visual reminder of how we celebrated...and I got a bit sentimental.

There's the manger with the baby Jesus that we fill with straw throughout the month as we serve others and do good deeds. Jason, his brother, and father cut the wood for forty-something of them so I could give them as a gift to all my young women.

A pre-lit Christmas tree has taken the place of live ones we'd cut down in Heber valley. The decorations are slowly phasing out from glass balls to shatterproof ornaments (and I have given up dreams of trendy turquoise and baby blues for traditional reds and golds that will hopefully last through the years). It is circled at the base by a train that fell victim to Garrett's curiosity and which no longer works. It is now only for looks and for me to put back the tracks from time to time after Garrett tears them apart.

We put a tree in the room of the older boys whereupon we can place handcrafted ornament creations that have come to us courtesy of many preschool and grade school art projects. It is also home to the wooden, toll-painted ornaments that Jason and I made with the help of my sister-in-law when we were newlyweds and couldn't really afford to buy any.

A collection of crèches sit atop the nightstand along with the hand-stitched manger scene that another sister-in-law made for us. I cannot even begin to guess how many glue sticks I went through to make the forty-something popsicle stick nativities (there again for my young women). We also have a manger scene made from origami by my brother-in-law. It is awesome!

I suppose I can see why I liked Christmas decorations so much as a child. They all have personal and significant meaning in their origin, and they all add a touch of nostalgia to the holidays.

This post authored by Amber