"Our" Tree

Tonight was the night I finally made myself begin the arduous task of decorating our Christmas tree. When we got married 8 years ago the narrow, 7.5 ft, pre-lit tree was just perfect. We were low on ornaments, short on space, and the lights being already on there made it so easy.

Now...

Now we are SO NOT low on ornaments. The narrow tree looks like it might have a hernia every year. And the lights. Uggg! Don't even get me started on the lights. {Most do not work so I have to string on others that do work and it still gets to claim the title of "pre-lit"}

Nevertheless--I began.

After an hour or so, the tree was looking good. Here is a close up of how I used my ribbon this year. Normally I put all the bows at the top and let the ribbons cascade down. This year I randomly (but not really randomly) placed the bows and let the bottoms twist and twirl around the body of the tree.

It ended up being not so bad. It seemed like the process went so much faster and the tree actually looked somewhat...well, you could actually see some tree through the...stuff. That was strange. But good.

Until...

Until I went to get out a few more decorations for the rest of the house and found this:

"What's that?" you ask?

Oh, that would be the MAIN box of ornaments. Oh my. How could I have forgotten these? These little trinkets that document 8 years worth of happenings in our happening little family. I guess I was just in denial.

However, I have now come to terms with my tree. Folks, we do not have a "My Tree" and a "Their Tree." This is an "Our Tree" which has all the glam of a designer tree (well, some of the glam) and all of the hodge-podginess of a family tree.

Hey...

It may be a crazy tree. But it's OUR Tree.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go give "Our Tree" it's hernia.