2007 Christmas Decorating

The day after Thanksgiving Karen started doing the Christmas decorating. Over the years we have found that after the living room has been moved around to make space for the tree and has been so for over a month, we have a hard time remembering exactly how we had it beforehand. Because of this, we now take a picture of how it looked before we started moving things. This year we have also taken a picture of the living room in its Christmas configuration so we know how to set it up in 2008.

The first order of business was setting up the tree. We moved the furniture around to the way we thought we had it last year. This makes a large open space right in front of the picture windows so the tree shines brightly into the night. Then Karen unpacks the pieces (it’s an artificial tree), assembles it, and strings the lights. Then it sits ready for the decorating proper.

Lance and Cherise go to her folks for Thanksgiving so we have our Thanksgiving late. This year we had it Sunday afternoon. When the kids are there, we put the ornaments on the tree. Our oldest ornaments are from when we were first married and when the kids were very young. We were so poor you can hardly believe it. Here are some of our oldest ones; a foil covered bell, a construction paper tetrahedron, a glittery ring, and a paper snowflake, all handmade by us to save money.

Besides the normal decorations we have two special things we do.

Every Christmas since our grandkids were born we have bought them an ornament. The first special thing was for them to put their ornaments on. We can hardly wait for Wyatt to get here so he can put his up too.

The other special thing is to top the tree. Ours is a peace symbol. Karen and I have had three different ones since we got married. The first one was made out of cardboard and got chewed up by mice somewhere along the way. The second one was also cardboard but it was retired after our 25th wedding anniversary when I made a special one for Karen.

Here is how the lights look at night.