Charlie Brown would be proud

So I put off buying a tree until Saturday. That made shopping really easy (and cheap) since I only had to sort through about a dozen trees (only a few of which were the species I wanted) to pick the "best" one.


You should have seen it before it was decorated. The reason for the "hole" without many lights or decorations near the middle is that there aren't any branches there! However, I have added a few more ornaments in that area since that photo was taken and made the flaw particularly obvious. (At that time, I'd only opened the box containing the key ones that make the tree special.) But who cares?

The tree, imperfect as it is, serves its purpose - which is to connect pagan Solstice worship to Christianity and the modern era by ending up in a brush pile for the yard critters to use for shelter - while serving as centerpiece for family traditions.

One of those traditions is this ornament

which my Grandparents once owned. Might have even been on their first tree. I wish I knew when they got it, but it is over 80 years old. One whose age I do know, because it was a gift on my very first Christmas from a Great Aunt, is down at the center bottom (where it is always hung). Another decoration only showed up recently

although I made it (rather badly, with a coping saw) quite a few decades ago. Even the paint job is totally lame, but my parents saved it anyway - and packed it up as a "present" when they cleaned out their house to move to a wonderful retirement community. Those are supposed to be reindeer in front.

Another tradition is using the old incandescent lights that my wife had (from her parents) when we got married. The beads, seen in one photo, are also from her side of the family. It is a "blended" tree, just as our marriage blends our two personalities. I hope my niece, newly engaged this holiday season, has as much fun developing a set of traditions with her husband as we have had with ours. The starting point for us was the star on top, which my wife made for our very first tree. That makes it the most special ornament of all of them.