Extreme Christmas Tree 2008

This is our perfect Christmas tree, grown at Bob's Trees in Galway, NY, and carefully chosen after much walking around, looking at many trees.

So here it is, all decorated, much like the tree I grew up with. As I pan with the camera, listen very carefully, you will hear the faint sound of a music box. The music comes from the tree stand, a tree stand that my parents probably got in the early years when they were married. It's a revolving tree stand too, and very very sturdy. I haven't used the revolving feature as I use probably twice as many lights as my parents used and I don't want to overload the tree stand with all that juice, plus I'd have to move the tree away from the wall too much.

When I got married, I knew my parents bought a pretend tree--you know, the commercialization of Christmas--and I knew they could not use the big lights. So I asked if we could have the lights, just the lights. My dad brought over virtually everything--lights, ornaments, garland, angel, and icicles. Not the stand thought, but that was OK. After my mom died, dad didn't put up a tree, he was aging himself, so he gave us the tree stand..

I've always loved the way the tree was decorated as I was growing up. And I go to even more extreme, adding more every year it seemed. Many of the ornaments pre-dated my parents marriage in 1948. Some of the very old ornaments came from Poland. Those old ornaments are highly fragile, and yes, I've lost some over the years. Over time, my mom gave me ornaments that had belonged to her sister after her sister went into a nursing home. My dad's sisters gave me some too. Someone gave our son a Baby's First Christmas theme ornament for his first Christmas, and that started me off. Every year, we bought an ornament for our son, and then our daughter when she was born. And I've even given my husband a few too....especially the Green Bay Packer's ornament which today is special on the tree in memory of my husband. So over the years I've added so much---from Hallmark Keepsakes to dollar store ornaments, from craft ornaments made by an aunt of mine, and ornaments noting events (our vacation, anniversary of the school or children attended, etc). You'll notice icicles, my parents bought them in NYC on their honeymoon; I'll guess that was their answer to hanging tinsel. Tinsel really makes a tree, but it is too much work. I did replace the angel on the top, the one I had as a child broke.

The tree has many lights too. It has twinkle lights, ice lights, and bublbe lights. As child we had snowball lights (made by GE, round like ice lights, but had styrofoam on them, when turned off they looked like snowballs.

We put up our tree about a week to week and half before Christmas and always keep it up through the 12 days of Christmas, i.e., through the feast of the Epiphany on Jan 6 For the most part, the tree stays fresh, I water if every day. And the scent of f a real tree can't be beat.




I'm sentimental about all those ornaments. Some

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Christmas
• tree
• ornaments
• lights
• antique
• old