Confessions of a Christmas tree Nazi.

Ok Nazi may be a little strong to describe how I am with my Christmas Tree. Well..with any Christmas tree. Years ago I was paid to make Christmas Trees look fabulous. We did trees for the Festival of Trees and we did pieces for the Governor’s mansion. We started the weekend after Labor Day and decorated Christmas trees that filled the store. I remember doing one tree that we did a twelve foot tree with peacock feathers, copper, and lime green. It took three days for the team to get all the lights on! It sold for more than $1200--they were insane I swear! Tons of handmade ornaments, fabric, beads and ribbon. It was my dream job.And it was YEARS ago.

Christmas 2005--not the best picture but you can almost see my insanity wrapped under the tree.

After I started having kids and doing the mom thing, I haven’t actively decorated trees much. That is…except for mine. For the last dozen years or so I have been so uptight about the Christmas tree. I had to have the G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S tree that looked like it came out of a store. This was a great fulfillment for myself. To have something that I felt I was actually good at…I was good at decorating trees. So I was going to do it WELL. The tree may have looked beautiful, and I spent many hours at night looking at the perfect white lights reflecting off of the various snowflakes and icicles. After a few years, the pretty ornaments were getting broke and the kids stopped asking to help set up the tree. (my husband wouldn't even be in the same room while we [aka "I"] decorated the tree. Last year it hit me pretty hard how much the kids didn’t like the tree. They wanted to be apart of the Christmas tradition of the tree and I had owned it completely.

So, perhaps it was because I was 8 months pregnant last Christmas, but I tossed out all of my pretties. The DI received a large amount of décor that year. When this year came around, it suddenly struck me, in October, that I didn’t have anything to put on my tree! Immediately the Christmas Nazi was in full swing planning colors and designs. But, thankfully, that quiet voice in my head directed me in a different direction. My boys and I have had fun putting together a quaint tree that they love. We made all of the ornaments (still working on some!) and James made a wicked long chain for the tree. When I told the kids that they could put anything on the tree that they made, they were at first very skeptical, but in the end they were delighted. We have had so much fun with the tree. We found bubble lights like I had in my childhood and I even put on colored lights—the first time EVER in my marriage. The ornaments are fun, non-breakable, and we made them all. :--)It is not glamorous, not fancy, not even color-coordinated but my boys love it and I love my boys. I love it too. I have loved sharing this experience with my boys.

And yes that is a ring of 5 gallon buckets of my food storage surrounding my tree with green fabric covering them...I still don't want the baby pulling down the tree..lol.