"Oh Christmas Tree.."

This is the first in a series (I'm guessing), regarding "the holidays."

The tree always fascinated me.  I loved decorating it as a child.

Well, I guess I loved the presents more...but check out that enormous tree.

 Or is it the tinsel that make it seem that way?  Or seeing only a part of the picture?

Hidden in between the branches are my favorite ornaments.  I remember the broken Santa bulb that someone strung a ribbon on and hung on the tree (I have that one).  There was a red clear ball with white polka dots.  That was my favorite.  There was the "ornament" tree topper, we didn't have a star (which always confused me, weren't trees supposed to be topped by a star, as opposed to an "ornament?"  (Oh, the musings of childhood.)

The trees shrank over the years (well, no, this one is still pretty tall...)

I remember going out in blizzard like conditions to get a $2 tree with Dad, one for our house and one for Gramma Doty (I specifically remember that as being the tree that she had a resident come in with the tree and the bat was flying everywhere.  She had the flu and thought she was seeing things).  I remember the year we went with the Strattons all over the fields and woods in search of a tree.  I remember the first time we went and bought an artificial tree.  Nylon branches, color coded.  (hm...)

There are memories we made with our own children.  Always ended up at the tree farm behind Shoemaker School, if we didn't we wished we had.  A Douglas fir, always, I didn't want anything "picky."  And we had our routine--we did the lights together with me on the chair and him following with the chain of lights as I'd tuck them in, then we'd let the kids decorate.

Then the year I moved home.  I went with Terry and Julie Ives and their children to look for a tree.  Terry fired up the tractor and we had hay bales and blankets in the wagon and we traipsed through the blizzard looking for the perfect tree.  Wound up with the top 9 feet off a tree that was heaven only knows how tall.  But for me that was my favorite tree of all.  Being a tree top, branches are sparser, lots of room in between, and that space was best utilized by my "famous" Saks' Fifth Avenue ornaments.  The year Nicole lived with me, we went (again in a blizzard) out to Lowe's and just bought an artificial tree.  We'd been waiting to get a real tree, but the mood struck and there we were, it was a mood lifter for us and it was a great tree.  I have had that tree for a few years now, but it has been in the attic for the last 2.  My cats are seeker and destroyers and I just don't want tree issues.  

And this year...?  Yesterday I went to the attic barn and found my daughter's tree she had purchased a few years ago.  (As a part of her announcement of her big move, she brought me the tree in the box.)  I sorted through my box and found sweet ornaments that are, for the most part, unbreakable.  With Angela's help in construction, we then decorated Grandma's tree.  It sits here in the corner of my big kitchen, with the gingerbread house Milo, Brooke and I created together (and finished by Dan and Caleb).