This Christmas will be my sons first and to celebrate I’ve put together a post in photos of us putting up our Christmas tree – there is a story behind this old hand me down tree, but I’ll get to that after the photos :-).

Hmmm what is it, can i eat it?

Dad where are you going with my new toy?

My son, Riley proceeded to giggle at me as I fluffed out the fake leaves and rearranged the branches. Riley and his father then just sat and watched me decorate the tree.

       Hmmm what is it?

 Can I have it?

 Hmmm now what should I do with it?

 Can I eat it?

 Yep! gunna try and eat it!

 First Christmas

(this is the ornament Riley tried to eat while I was trying to get a photo of him with it)

My tree & table decorations – while these are probably not as fancy as some of you have and I only decorate one room in my house, the dining room. When I lived at home we only decorated one room, the living room and this tree is the very tree that my grandmother and I would decorate every year with mostly the very same decorations. I’m about to turn 27 so the tree has to be at least twenty five years old (ish) and I love it, I look at it and I’m ten years old again, I look at it and I’m home. It still has a few of the same wooden ornaments I played with as a kid. I can remember going into Grace Brothers with my mother and buying a new angel for the top and I still use her today. About three years ago I inherited this tree and with it a box of old decorations from my mother.

Now back to the decorating ritual – as i remember it – on the first of December every year my Nanma (my maternal grandmother) would come over and we would decorate the tree, mum was doing who knows what at the time, but Nanma and I would decorate the tree and I loved it. I am not sure why or how it started, but i always looked forward to decorating this tree, and i know it was the doing it with my grandmother part that made it fun, cause it’s kinda stressful on your own. This year I did it myself with Riley watching on (OK my husband put the actual tree bit together for me), but I’m thinking next year I’m going to make my mother come over and decorate it with Riley while I go drink some wine and she and he can carry on the tradition.

I am very much looking forward to this Christmas and i hope i can instill in my son my love for Christmas, the real Christmas, being with family and friends and celebrating being together!