our christmas tree {2010}

The day after Thanksgiving we went to pick out our Christmas tree. When Joel and I first got married I had to beg him to get a real tree. He always had an artificial one growing up. I had grown up cutting down a real tree every year. It was just part of Christmas to me. I'll have to tell you sometime about our first trip to the Christmas tree farm as a married couple. Let's just say it didn't end very well. And ever since then we have settled for buying a tree from the local Boy Scouts. It works for us. Maybe someday we will attempt cutting down our own tree again.

This year Levi helped us pick out our tree.

Last year we were too sad to even put up a tree,

so it was fun doing this as a family again...this time with Levi.

Joel and I have different tree picking philosophies.

I always like to take my time and find the "perfect" tree.

Joel likes to pick a tree fast...

the faster you find it the more perfect it is.

But it was late and cold, so we went with Joel's tree picking method this year.

I only changed my mind once (in case you don't know me...that is a miracle).

When we got home and put it up it turned out to be the perfect tree too.

We were both happy. :)

 I think a whole week went by before we actually decorated our tree. 

And for some reason Levi wasn't loving decorating the tree with us.

I thought he would love the lights,

but he was very upset with us for standing on a chair without him.

He didn't like to be left on the floor alone.

Silly boy.

We managed to get all the lights on and then decided that I would put the ornaments on by myself when Levi was sleeping. I have always liked to have a "pretty" tree. In the past I have always come up with different color schemes and themes for our tree. I don't always put up all of our ornaments even. But for some reason this year I decided I wanted to keep it simple and use all of our ornaments that we had collected or had been given to us. I am so glad I did. As I dug through the ornament containers I was so surprised to find some ornaments that belonged to Cora. I forgot that we even had them.

This year our tree is full of ornaments that have significance and meaning.

In a way it tells a story of our family.

I love it.

I think this is my favorite Christmas tree ever.