Our First Tree!

Brahm and I bought our first Christmas tree a couple weeks ago.  We got a real tree, which I haven't had since I lived at my parents' house, and it is awesome.  It makes our apartment smell great and I just like it so much more than an artificial tree.

Buying and setting up the tree sort of just felt like something to do for fun, but eventually I realized that it was actually kind of a special thing - we were starting a tradition together, that we'll eventually pass down to our future kids.  A big deal!

Buying the tree, buying some lights from Costco, and borrowing an old tree skirt and some garland from my parents wasn't the big deal.  But when we sat down with Brahm's mom to pick out all of the ornaments from their Christmas box that belonged to him, we realized how we want to decorate our tree every year.

Nothing against beautiful stylish trees with matching decorations - they are awesome and I bet really fun to decorate, especially if you do a new theme every year.  But we decided that other than lights and garland, everything that goes on our tree forever has to mean something.  It needs to be a gift, something we bought somewhere special, etc. 

It doesn't have a topper yet - it's still a bit of a work in progress.

Moose I got from Norway, guitar was a gift to Brahm's mom from a friend but she gave it to us, and that white puff in the top left corner is an ugly little cotton ball lamb Brahm made in Sunday School when he was 4... so of course I LOVE IT.

The ball in the top corner was given to me by my grandma last Christmas - all of the grandchildren received one of these balls, which were the ornaments my mom and her sisters decorated their tree with every year growing up.

We don't have many ornaments yet which is okay because our tree is small this year.  It will be fun to build our collection together and remember where each ornament came from every year when we decorate our tree.