Christmas Trees - yes I am behind on everything!

So I fully realize that I am writing this approximately 45 days too late but I have just been sorting through my photos and found the ones of the Christmas tree.

Every year a different sister gets to choose the tree, last year was Rowena, the year before Madeline and this year was finally Naomi's turn! She was still six at Christmas time and I am sure you can imagine her excitement when she learned this was her year!

She made sure her big sisters knew this was absolutely, completely, 100 percent her decision!

So off we went in search of the perfect tree...

Got to love shopping for Christmas trees in short sleeves/shorts and flip flops! Madeline is such a California girl!

We walked up and down many aisles until..... she found the one she wanted!One thing I notice when I am walking around the mall/shops at Christmas time is how perfect so many of the stores trees are. Every ornament/bauble/ribbon is perfectly color coordinated and the pristine trees shine with the pride of their own perfection.

Our tree is nothing like that and I love that it is nothing like that! We have many old ornaments on our tree. Not necessarily nice old ornaments but ones that I made at vacation bible school at First Baptist Church in Fallbrook and somehow they have survived the years intact!

Also Father Christmas (English way to say it) or Santa Clause (American way to say it) leaves my girls a new ornament every year in their stocking. These ornaments are very random to say the least, he is often very good at getting them something that they are really into for that particular year.

One of my favorite parts of bringing home the tree is the excitement of just getting the ornament box out of the garage to bring in the house! The girls are just itching to get their fingers on THEIR ornaments. They always say things like "oh remember when I got this bear/dog/ballet shoes etc etc..." They each remember whose ornaments are whose and can be quite territorial about placing them on the tree.

I have a few favorites also like a glass ball that has a map of London (because I remember walking around those places) and a glass ball with the nativity scene on it (because that is what Christmas is all about of course!).


So in the end our tree ends up looking like this!

A colorful representation of all our individual personalities on one family tree!