Our Christmas Tree

This past weekend, Hans and I finally got the Christmas tree set up and decorated.  It was a little later than we'd have liked, but late is better than never.  Anyway, it got me thinking about how different people I know decorate their tree, versus how we do our.   Some people like a themed tree.  It's all red and gold balls with white lights (or something like that).  If they have kids, they may have a separate tree for the children to decorate, but their tree is the main one.  Some people can't decide what theme they want, so they decorate multiple trees.  Some people don't have a theme, but do have somewhat uniform ornaments (oh, and lots of tinsel).  Our tree's theme is the same every year... Christmas.

One of the things I love about Christmas is the togetherness.  Families come together to spend time with one another.  Memories are made.  Our tree is filled with memories of Christmas past.  It reminds us of family members and vacations, schools and traditions.  This year, we have a smaller tree than last year, so many of our ornaments would not fit on.  Hans and I each, however, found the ornaments that were most important to us, and all of those are up there.

Full of family memories...and Cody in the corner.

 And here are some of the family favorites:

A Ukrainian spider web for good luck.

A light house that actually lights up from Hans' grandma.

Memories of our trip to Arizona over Christmas 2008.

An ornament filled with costume scraps from Cirque du Soleil.  Hans and I love their performances and thought this ornament would be perfect.  Hey!  We should do this for TIV!

Memories of our college days and our wedding.

Obviously I couldn't post pictures of all of the ornaments I love or else I probably would have taken pictures of the whole tree.  Just so you know, though, we also have ornaments from Hans' great-grandparents and my grandparents, both of our "baby's first Christmas" ornaments, and my "baby's second Christmas" ornaments.  There are some that have been on my Christmas tree for as long as I can remember, and it doesn't really become Christmas until I see those ornaments.  Oh how I love the Christmas tree!