Advent Calendar: The Christmas Tree



Christmas Morning 1949

Here I am at age 22 months running gleefully towards the Christmas Tree.  Looking in amazement at the tree and enjoying my very own rocking chair.  That is my Dad's writing, he made the photo albums.

As a child we always had a real tree and I loved the smell of the tree.  I still do but I have had an artificial tree since I brought my first home in 1989.  I didn't want to deal with the mess of the water and needles. 

The year Richard and I married we lived in my little town house which was a 950 square foot.  His boys slept in the living room and his daughter in the second bedroom.  Since the boys slept on the hide-a-bed sofa there was no room for a tree.  We took a card board box, covered it with blue wrapping paper for the background and cut a green tree shape out of wrapping paper and put that on the box.  We put holes into the box and push mini lights into the holes at the edge of the green shape.  It wasn't much but we enjoyed it.  If I can find a picture of this tree I'll add it later. My sister in law as brought us a little pine tree from the drug store, table top tree since we weren't going to have one.

I can remember as a child going to the Christmas tree lot and buying a tree, we usually went in the evening and we were all bundle up to stay warm.  This was when we lived in Whitestone, New York.  It was an adventure to go out in the cold and to see Christmas light.

In Florida we didn't have to bundle up and I think we started going in the afternoon to buy the trees.  It was not a much fun for some reason.

My Dad was in charge putting the lights on the tree.  I use to want to help him and I would get right behind him on the step ladder and he would yell at me to get out of the way, and he added, "If I fall you will become an ink spot."   Luckily he never fell and I never became an ink spot. 

Mom did the fine points of decorating like the ornaments and tinsel.  My Mom would get upset if the boys threw the tinsel on.  I was usually patient enough to put it one one strand at a time.  I don't do tinsel any more, I have cats.



Christmas Tree 2008

 My favorite lights were the bubble candles and I was really glad when they came out again.  So I do have large lights on my tree.  A few years ago I purchased a pre-lite tree and it was fine for two years but now I have a full section where the lights don't work and I have to add a string of lights anyway, what a drag.

Merry Christmas
Christ is the Reason for the Season