We are very excited to have our first Christmas tree in three years. Yes, that is correct: the last time we had a fully decorated Christmas tree was in 2008. In 2009, Aidan and I left Georgia just before Christmas to join James in New York, only bringing some of our possessions; Christmas decorations were not part of the items that made the trip then. And because we left before Christmas, I did not go to the trouble of putting up a tree and then taking it down again before we left. James had a tree for us when we arrived in New York but he only bought a few decorations for it.
Last year, we moved into our new home just before Thanksgiving and had not yet unpacked our decorations. And, since we spent Christmas in Michigan with my brother and his family, we did not add to our unpacking workload by putting up a tree.
On Saturday, we drove out to a local tree farm and cut a Frasier fir. James has long wanted to cut his own tree, so he was excited to play lumberjack. We brought it home and got it set up, then yesterday we decorated it. It was such fun to unpack our boxes of decorations and to reacquaint ourselves with the ornaments. We don't have a fancy-schmancy color coordinated or theme tree; our tree is a lovely mishmash of ornaments that have special meaning to us. There are ornaments that Aidan has made over the years, ornaments that we purchased while on trips and even a few ornaments that were on our family tree when I was growing up. Some are elegant, some are obviously homemade and some are downright kitschy but we adore them all.
I sat in the darkened living room last evening, sipping wine and enjoying the lights and sparkles. It was not until that moment that I realized how much I had missed our Christmas tree.
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