The night we got back from Idaho we went to get a Christmas tree after we realized that it was the last Saturday we'd have free together until the week before Christmas and a few days before we left for Michigan. I was excited for Noah's first experience getting a tree but he slept the entire time shielded from the cold. So Hyrum helped us pick a tree. We wondered how we'd get it home but we strapped it to the top of our compact car and drove as slowly as we could home.
We pulled it into the house to the sounds of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "O Tannenbaum"
Noah now awake got his first feel of a Christmas tree. It wasn't going to be his last.
We thought we'd let it set overnight to let it thaw a bit but Hyrum could NOT wait. So we got the lights and decorations out of the garage and got to work. In the past we've done a formal and coordinated tree but this year we decided to do a memory tree. And I'm glad we did.
When my parents got married they didn't have any ornaments their first Christmas so it was a tradition in my family growing up to each get an ornament every year. Then when we got married we took our ornaments with us for our first tree as a married couple. We've tried to continue this tradition with our boys. My sister did a blog post about her favorite holiday decorations. At the bottom she had a picture of the angel we had on our tree growing up. It was one that my dad had made from a doll head cardboard and a plastic doily. We all LOVE it and think she is soo beautiful. There's probably going to be a battle over it someday.
As I brought out all of my old ornaments it took me back and I wanted to share my favorites.
Totally remember picking this out. Love that Mary's head is cocked to the side. I'm sure it wasn't suppose to be.
I realized looking at my ornaments that I had quite a few with my name engraved on them. There is nothing on this earth that has the name 'Sunny' on it without a request and I LOVED things with my name written on them. My son will have the same problem and I thought it was fabulous that my in laws sent an ornament with Hyrum's name on it...and it looks exactly like one of mine.
When my grandparents were on one of their missions they were gone around Christmas time and missed their family so they took the pictures of the grandkids that were sent and put them in frames and put them on their tree. When they came home they went back on the tree each Christmas and we loved to find our pictures on the tree every Christmas. When they died the pictures passed back to us. Now it reminds me of my Grandma.
And I got one for Hyrum when he was tiny. I plan to get one for Noah too.
I love an ornament that we got for our first Christmas as a married couple. I can't believe it's been 10 years since I met the love of my life.
Another more recent addition to our tree was an ornament I got from my sister after we went to the Fisher Price museum and remembered the 'little people' we played with as kids. We were literally on the floor looking at these toys remembering the different play sets how the different people felt in our mouths.
It totally reminds me of my childhood and now my boys both love it too.
We've really enjoyed having the tree up for so long. Noah has been really intrigued with it too. Last Friday when Derek was gone and I was busy doing something Noah was messing with the lights. I'd pulled him away a few times but just wanted to finish the thing I was doing when I heard the tree fall. I turned around to find it on the floor and Noah nowhere to be found. Then I heard the cry from inside the tree.
I lifted the tree to find Noah, still sitting, under the tree, crying his little heart out. I comforted him and calmed him down. He didn't seem to have a mark on him, miraculously. I put him in his and Hyrum's room to lift the tree again ( It is not a light tree). Hyrum of course couldn't stay in the room so neither could Noah and once I got it up he was back at it. Surprisingly only one ornament broke. Until Noah sat down with a couple bulbs and knocked them together.
As you can see I'd just watered the tree so I had fans and space heaters on it the rest of the day. I was holding Noah when I noticed a mark on his head. A little green mark.
It became a bruise so obviously a branch hit him but within a couple days it was gone.
Poor little guy! It's a good thing he won't remember this Christmas.
