Christmas Traditions

Last week I was able to successfully tackle "Get Ready for Christmas Week". In the Binkley household, one of our traditions is that everyone has their own tree. We currently have five Christmas trees in our house. Five trees, three people. We are pretty Christmas tree crazy, I guess. So....we have this tree in the den.

This is the tree that I decorate and am very particular about. It has a theme, and its theme is "modern country." And I will rearrange its branches approximately three times a day until Christmas because every time I spend any length of time around the tree, I see spots that need to be "fixed". (Perhaps its theme should be renamed "the tree of a mad woman.") It has a grapevine star on top, and on the branches there are traditonal glass ball ornaments, a red wooden garland, scatters of berries, and hand-sewen cloth ornaments that are "vintage" and have been passed down to us through Gary's family.

In the entry way, we have Gary's tree which is decorated in a variety of doctor ornaments that we have collected over the years. They are pretty tricky to find, so that is always a fun challenge. I usually find one or two per season. This year I actually found three. The garland and bow are gauze, and the other ornaments are band-aids and syringes (sans needles, of course).

In Zach's room, he has his own tree that he gets free range with. Usually he piles about ten ornaments on one branch. This year all of his "Rudolph" collection ended up on the same branch together. He has a variety of little ornaments, may are cartoon characters, and he has been decorating his own tree since he was two. His meme and I have added to his ornament collection and this is a huge highlight of the Christmas decorating for him. (This also gives him a project so that when he wants to "help" I can point him in that direction.) He is very proud of his tree and it serves as his nightlight for the month of December.

And rounding out the madness...

A little vintage cloth tree for the kitchen.

An antique ceramic tree for the master bedroom.

I am planning to add a final tree to the mix next year. (I am waiting to buy a tree at the after Christmas sales on Dec. 26.) It will be for all of the little homemade and sentimental ornaments and it will go in our gameroom. It will be our "family memories" tree. I have some of the ornaments that Gary had as a child, I have some ornaments that Zach has made, and I have started collecting an ornament from every vacation we take, so that is what will go on it.

On a non-Christmas tree note, we have a few other things that have become tradition in our home.

These are the little cottages that Gary's grandmother gave us when we got married. We all really enjoy them.

When Gary and I got married, I felt a real need to establish whether we would be a "Snowman" family or "Santa" family. Most people I know seem to align with one or the other. I opted for "snowman" so we have snowman collection that I usually add to periodically, plus our stockings and tree skirt have snowmen. (We also have a few Santas that were given to us that are displayed together in a little collection. We love Santa and have absolutely nothing against him.)

(This is a window that was hand-painted by a lady at our church. I just got it a few weeks ago!)

Finally, we of course leave milk and cookies for Santa, but we also always leave a plate of carrots, apples (or whatever produce item my son deems necessary) and a bowl of water for the reindeer. And they and Santa always leave crumbs behind. Here is a pic of that from last Christmas. (And it looks like oranges were the produce item of choice.)

For more fun Christmas traditions, be sure to check out Holiday Happenings at Conversations with my Hairdryer. (Thanks, Jen, for hosting this fun carnival!)