First, we bring in the Christmas tree. We are a sentimental folk, when we could not afford a real tree, much less have a real one in our first apartment (landlord's restriction), we opted for an artificial Christmas tree we bought on sale at Walmart dirt cheap. I had never had a Christmas tree before, real or fake, so I was super excited to get one that year. It was our first Christmas together, in our first apartment. I will never forget it.
We went to Menard's to get some of the ornaments and decorations. We picked them all out together, then we went to Sam's Club to get the ribbon.
We brought the tree home and set it up. We spent that evening decorating it while eating pizza. Ever since, we have been carrying this tradition on with the kids.
We bring the tree inside (almost eight years later and we cannot bring ourselves to part with it), we turn up some classic Christmas music, and decorate our tree as a family.
I always thought I would be the type of person to rearrange the ornaments my kids put on once they went to bed, but I don't. In fact, I love the way they decorate it with us. I prefer to leave it all just the way it is.
Every year it seems we try something new or festive. This year we added tinsel. I've never been a huge fan of the tinsel, but it's grown on me this past year. I actually prefer it over ribbon I think.
Once the tree is set up, (always on the Sunday after Thanksgiving), and it is all decorated and lit up, we put in a Christmas movie and bake pizzas.
The kids look forward to this tradition every year. They are now old enough to know what we are going to do as the year goes on, so it's even more exciting to see their faces light up when we tell them what time of year it is.
