Sparkles and Shoes

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12 Days of Christmas: Decorating the Tree

| 12 Days of Christmas, Victoria's Secret

Today, for the first time, I had a really blogging predicament on my hands.  As most of the modern world knows last night was the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and I thought about abandoning my 12 days of Christmas to write about that.  After much thought I decided against it for three reasons: (1) The show was actually November 7th and I blogged about it the next day (2) This blog is about my favorite things and while I enjoyed the show I like sticking to my plan and that involves Day 5 of Christmas and decorating the tree (3) Why do I want to be one of dozens of girls to blog about and show pictures of the super skinny, overly tanned models in lingerie? I have more important things to talk about, or at least I would like to think so!

After one day of Christmas music and three days of gift guides (here, here, and here) today is the fifth day of my  12 Days of Christmas and it is time to dive right in to one of my favorite activities of the holiday season – decorating the Christmas tree!  

Ever since I can remember the first weekend after Thanksgiving it was time to go get the tree. Because I grew up in a suburban area I have never had the experience of going to cut down my Christmas tree but the place we went to had hundreds to choose from. Hunting for the “perfect” tree took about an hour when my brother and I were little and every year, without fail, went like this: 

Purchase an evergreen tree, usually about 7 feet
Tie the tree to the top of the car and drive SLOWLY home
Set it up the tree in the living room
Put water in the base and adorn with tree skirt 
Wait while Dad strings the white Christmas lights 
Place angel on top 
Make sure angel and lights all work 
Decorate with ornaments – Kelly and Kevin get the soft, unbreakable, handmade ones and hang them towards the bottom of the tree while Mom and Dad put the fragile ones up to

I am not saying this is the only way to do it, but this is just our tradition. From what my parents have told me in B.C. (Before Children) they used to only have simple glass ornaments but as my brother and I started preschool and through our childhoods we would make and bring home “handmade” ornaments to hang on the tree. Twenty plus years later our tree is a smorgishboard of things, but all of which are meaningful – to me the most important. We have three boxes which the ornaments “live” in and when we pull them down from the attic either my brother or I got to be in charge of which ornaments mommy and daddy had to hang (because they were fragile) and which one’s Kelly and Kevin could do.  Every year the result was a little bit different but every year it was truly our tree, no other one in the world like it!  (Please note this tree, circa 2010, has candy canes on it, hence, different every year).

This year my tree is a bit different as I am in a small New York City apartment and there are no guys or cars around to haul the tree.   I will show you our attempt on Monday with my “Deck the Halls” post as part of the 12 Days of Christmas!

How do you decorate your tree? Where do you put it? 
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Comments

  20. Ashley says

    We still don’t have our tree up. I have a space in the living room calling it’s name. I’m nervous about my glass ornaments this year with fast baby fingers…Good idea putting the breakable ones at the top!

  25. alongobucco says

    We have a long standing tradition of getting and decorating our tree the day after thanksgiving, too. I got double the holiday good-ness this year with a tree at my parents house AND a tree for my NYC apartment!

    Alyssa
    The Glossy Life

  28. Lauren says

    Even though we don’t have children, we mainly stick to unbreakable ornaments because of our puppy dogs! My husband makes fun of me though because I try to be sneaky and rearrange the ornaments behind his back, but he always manages to catch me!

    Fizz and Frosting

  30. Little Rus says

    I think your idea of using kid-friendly ornaments on the bottom is brilliant! Talking of VS – I wonder if it’s available on youtube yet…. x

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