More Christmas Traditions

Since Andrew's parents gave us their old full-size tree, we have an extra tree in our storage shed that is just a few feet tall.

We both really like Christmas so at first we thought we'd just set them both up. But then we remembered that our apartment is really too small for that. We thought about giving it away, but I'm still a little partial to it since it was our first tree.

So I kept thinking of what to do and how we could use it. As I was decorating our wreath, I came up with an idea.

I thought that it would be fun to break that tree out on Christmas Eve and make homemade decorations for it. Just like the snowmen on our wreath contain personal notes to us, I thought we could make little ornaments and attach notes to them before putting them on the tree. The kids could make paper chains and snowflakes, and any other little ornament idea we come up with.

We are also planning on making little ornaments with the kids' pictures on each year so they can see how they grow. We thought we'd reserve those for the tree on Christmas Eve--then we can look at our pictures, make ornaments, write notes of love and gratitude and decorate the tree with them. It would be a great way to channel that Christmas Eve energy that children have.

Then on Christmas morning we'd take out the notes and read them to each other.

Granted, this might take some censoring from Santa when the children are old enough to fight and be mean to each other. We wouldn't want any hate notes to ruin a Christmas morning for anyone. That's the beauty of being Santa. You can make things go the way you want. You hold the magic.

We also have a nice-sized lump of coal that James Gillespie gave me last year. Isn't he a sweet boy?

I'm going to put some glaze-stuff on it so that it doesn't get everything black. Then on Christmas Eve, Santa will choose someone's stocking and put the coal inside of it with all the goodies. Whoever gets the lump of coal will get to put the star or angel on the top of the tree the next year.

We don't have a star or angel yet, but we want one. Right now our tree is topped with a snowman, which seems overtly pagan to me.