Winter time is so full of traditions in our family - nothing overly spectacular or noteworthy to the fly on the wall watching us set up our holiday decorations, but little things that I'm so glad we get to share with you.
I've made a point over the last few years to keep things simple when we decorate for the holidays. When I was a kid my favorite part of Christmas decorating was watching my parents put up a string of blue glass bells. They were a wedding gift that my parents received, and I don't think they are even meant to be holiday decorations. But of all the sparkly ornaments and buckets of decorations, the blue bells were always my favorite, and it took a little convincing before my mom would give them to me, but she finally let me take them when we got our first house. It's officially Christmastime for me when these go up.
We also have the same fake Christmas tree that my family used when I was a kid. It's been put up and taken apart more times than I can remember, and eventually it's going to lose all of its "needles" and look like a Charlie Brown tree, but I'll still probably use it because I love it. When we would set up the tree as kids, my dad would have us lay under the tree and spin it to put the lights on instead of awkwardly walking around the tree in circles with a string of lights. I have such good memories of laying under that tree with my brother and sister, spinning it around in circles. We adopted that technique when we inherited the tree, and it was awesome to watch the two of you under the tree the same way I used to do.
Also, your choice of protective eye wear for the tree mechanics was pretty superb.
Another special thing I loved about decorating for Christmas as a kid was my stocking. My Nana hand made my stocking when I was a baby. It's missing some of the sequins and details after 30 Christmases, but it makes me smile to hang it up every year.
When the two of you were born, my mom wanted to make special stockings for you too. She cross stitched these stockings for you - every inch of the front of these stockings is hand stitched.
As much as I love the traditions and nostalgic things I get to pass on to you, I am really enjoying creating our own traditions too. As we dug out the boxes and boxes of ornaments, Dad and I decided that we weren't going to unpack any of them this year. The last few years our tree has been decorated with ornaments that wind up buried under your beautiful preschool artwork, so we decided this year we would leave our tree empty so we could add art to it over the next month.
Today's contribution to the tree was a paper chain. It was so much fun to sit together at the table and get glue everywhere. We made a 37 foot paper chain to wrap around our tree, and I can't wait to see what other creations we can add. I think this may be the start of a new tradition.
Love,
Mom
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