Under the Tree

I guess I've been reading a lot lately, so the last couple of posts have been a little dry. Here's something a little lighter.

My family has a bunch of Christmas traditions--as I think every family does. Before my grandmother passed away, she used to pick her Christmas decorating theme the year before. This could be anything from the color pink to shepherds or Santa Claus. She would spend all year making decorations for the house and more importantly, the tree. Perhaps this was her way of celebrating Christmas throughout the year.

Following our grandmother's tradition, our Christmas tree is always decorated to the hilt according to a theme. This year it was themed to go with my sister's wedding since her bridal shower was the day after Christmas at our house. It was her colors of blue and purple with silver and icy winter wonderland decorations.



Our tree is never allowed to be anything less than awe-inspiring. Sometimes this means we don't finish it until days before Christmas. And sometimes this means we have a lot of unused decorations. If us kids have decorations we want to use that don't fit the theme, or that are just too kid-like, we have to hide them deep inside (preferably towards the back) or put them on a smaller tree in another room.



But we always love the tree for its beauty. I think one of our traditions started because we loved the tree so much. Every year one night before Christmas Eve, all the kids sleep under the Christmas tree or as close to under as possible. The lights stay on all night and we fall asleep under the tree's brilliance.

This year I snapped a few photos of my sisters who fell asleep before I did. This was the least unflattering one :)




beck