Thursday, December 4, 2008

O Christmas Tree and....Something More Important

I love putting up our Christmas tree. I love pulling out the boxes I carefully packed away a year ago and finding the ornaments I cherish. I love turning on the lights at night and sitting in the darkness staring at the tree's warm glow.


I hate taking it down.


So, for this reason, the tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving, giving me plenty of time to enjoy my efforts and plenty of time to get the energy to take down and sort it all into the proper boxes. (Yes, I can be persnickety about which ornament goes where and hey how do you spell persnickety????)







I've been collecting ornaments since I was a kid. We have so many ornaments we could probably fill three trees with them. Each year for the past oh, I'd say 5 years I only put certain colored ornaments on the tree. Pretty much everything pastel, silver, or gold. I have a growing box of red ornaments that never see the light of day anymore. Burgundy or maroon will make it, but red, no. Don't ask me why. It's that persnickety thing.

As we've been antiquing more and more, of course, vintage ornaments make it on the tree. And I have several "ballerina" pieces I can't wait to dig out and hang. But this year we have a new type of ornament. Can you guess????


Dear Bebe actually has four of her own already! FOUR! And she's only 2 1/2 months old. Here is one given to her by her Dear Cousin.




Hope Dear Bebe likes decorating the tree because we have created a tradition in the Jillian's Pages household. That and watching "It's a Wonderful Life" while we do the tree.


But, there seems to be two types of Christmases going on in the world. One about the trees, the glitz, the gifts, the parties. The other is about what took place in a little town called Bethlehem.


There's nothing wrong with having gifts and parties, the trees and the ornaments...because I sure love the ornaments....but let's not forget what started it all.

That's why under the tree, we place a nativity scene.



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh your tree looks nice, and the ornaments and the nativity scene :-)

I am looking forward to going on our "Weihnachtsmarkt" (Christmas market), Saturday I'll be in Duisburg, and maybe someday in Dortmund (they have there the biggest x-mas tree , have a look at:
http://www.weihnachtsmarkt-dortmund.de/weihnachtsbaum.html)

love, kat

Ms.Daisy said...

It makes my heart sing to see the traditions that were handed down in our family being carried on...and on...


Love,
Mom/Gramma

Rue said...

Hi Jillian :)

Your tree looks beautiful and I love the vintage ornaments!

I would love to have a tree like that, but I use every single ornament in the box. When Bebe ends up making them in school, you'll know why there's no such hing as color coordination anymore LOL

I'm so glad you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family!

rue

kari and kijsa said...

What a beautiful tree!

Have a blessed and wonderful day!

smiles, kari & kijsa

Unknown said...

Gorgeous tree :) I love Christmas so much I decorate the day after HALLOWEEN :)
I found your blog via Liz's blog..
Merry Christmas

MJ said...

Lovely tree! I smiled as I read your post. My, how you can expect things to change quickly tree-wise in the near future!

I only hang non-breakable ornaments. All my fragile (and particularly family heirloom ornaments) have been safely stored away until K and N get older. I can't bear to have them break; worse, I can't bear the thought of having glass fragments in little people! K and N helped decorate the tree this year; the cluster of decorations at the bottom of the tree is remarkable. I tried to migrate some decorations higher into the tree but they still seem to congregate downwards. They need to enjoy the tree too!

I know a friend of mine (Saucy) used to put her X'mas tree in a playpen.