My Tannenbaum

This year we had decided to do a little tree on the table top like we did when we lived in our shoebox apartment. Less chance of Toby breaking ornaments and pulling it over we thought.

Then husby got sick and life became a little more depressing and I decided that if a tree was going to come over then Toby would do more damage with one that was the same weight and height he was than with one that weighed as much as me and was taller than all of us. Also I love my Christmas tree. It usually goes up the day after Thanksgiving and stays up till Epiphany (Jan 6). I love the lights, I love my ornaments and I love sitting by it every day. Big Tree it is!

So we set out with the Grandparents and a well wrapped little Toby to pick the perfect Tree. Plan A of chopping one down was put off by the snowfall of the previous night so instead we headed to our favourite Garden Centre as a lot of it's trees were covered.

Toby didn't help decorate the Tree. In fact, the madness of Husby being ill meant that it was up for four or five days before it saw a single ornament. My former boss advised us to put only jingle bells at the bottom of the tree, it works like a charm. They are the only ornaments he touches, and then he just jingles them. It also alerts us to his presence at the tree if we are not watching him for a moment.
If I inherited my love of Christmas music and movies from my dad then from my mum I got my love of ornaments. We would argue every year when decorating the tree but it was always so much fun.

One of my favourite things upon encountering the American Christmas for the first time was the discovery of big bulb lights (and year round Christmas stores!). The old fashioned kind that leave a Carbon footprint the size of Texas. So we have those on the tree every year - coloured of course :-)

I also discovered a love of Glass ornaments and collect the balls in peculiar shades when I find them, my favourites are these lightbulb shaped ones - you can find them every year at Target.
Last year we made an ornament with Snapfish of Toby. I struggled with whether or not to do it this year but in the end we decided that the birth year of each child would probably be better than ending up with dozens of ornaments.
My mum sent me these Swarovski Nutcracker ornaments years ago, I usually place them around the tree but for some reason this year I put them all together, I think I prefer it this way

My mum had clip on birds for her tree and so I was beyond excited when we found these on one of her visits over here. Expensive? Yes - but worth every penny!

Last year we had gift cards for LL Bean and I found these cute clip on ornaments, hmm didn't know it was going to be an obsession!

Mum is big on ornaments so this is another one from her. Funnily enough she bought him the same one for this year!
Every so often I find an ornament for Husby. He has Grover and he did have a glass robot (he died last year) but this I found the first year we were married. Another LL Bean find.

Tomorrow - what to do when you marry into a family of collector's...