Now that Thanksgiving is over and the turkey is gone, it’s time to turn our focus to Christmas. Its time get those decorations down from the attic or up from the basement and start thinking about putting them up.
How many days before Christmas is it the time to go and buy the annual Christmas tree? Do you cut a live tree and bring it home? Maybe an annual trek to the Christmas tree lot? Or just take it out of the box! Which brings up the important question of whether you are a real Christmas tree or artificial tree family!
If you have gone over to the dark side and become an artificial tree family—when did it happen? Why did you make the change? Are these possible reasons:
- Convenience
- No mess
- Cost
- Easier
What do you give up by going fake?
- That beautiful evergreen smell
- The traditional sense of Christmas
I’ll be honest my family made the move to the dark side a number of years ago. I think all the reasons I mentioned above played a role in our decision, but I really do miss the annual trip to the tree lot and finding that perfect tree. Can you believe how the cost of Christmas trees has gone up in the past few years?
Write About Your Family’s Christmas Tree Traditions
As you look back on your past Christmases, when you were a child, how did you get your Christmas tree? If you lived in the country did you go out and cut down a tree? Write about how you found that prefect tree. Was finding the tree an annual family tradition? Did you go as a family to get that tree?
Traditionally, how did you decorate your tree? As a child, did you make decorations in school? How about stringing pop-corn and cranberries and putting that up on the tree? Did your collection of Christmas tree ornaments grow each year? Did you have a favorite ornament? Where did it come from, or was it one you made in school? Did you have color coordinated ornaments or all different types.
How about tinsel? Did your parents make you put the tinsel on the branches one strand at a time or did you just throw the tinsel on in bunches? I remember that was such a pain—we always wanted to just put the ornaments on the tree and not wait for the tinsel. I remember it was my mother who put the tinsel on. She was always so meticulous and never put more than one strand on at a time. Those of you that don’t know about tinsel probably don’t have a clue about what I’m talking about.
How about flocked trees? Do you remember those—a kind of fake snow sprayed on the branches? I guess it looked good, but it always seemed to cover the real beauty of the tree. We never did a flocked tree. How about your childhood tree? What was it like?
How about your Christmas tree lights! Did they blink? Or all the same color? Remember the bulbs that screwed in. If one was burned out the entire strand wouldn’t work until you found the burned out one. How about untangling them, we never seemed to take them off the tree in an organized way and ended up with a big tangled mess the next year.
As you get ready to celebrate this holiday season, take some time and write about your holiday traditions! Share them with your children and grand-children. As you celebrate share the memories of your traditions with them. This helps connect and strengthen the generations of your family in these chaotic times.
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