Holiday Traditions

Our first Christmas, Scott & I decided to make a new family tradition that was all our own. We had a Lowe's gift card left from our wedding and needed a full sized Christmas tree. When we got there, we decided to buy a real tree (total cost after gift certificate, $1.39). This was nothing new for Scott, but it was my first real tree and it was such a perfect tree- symmetrical, full, green, the needles didn't fall off the first week like I thought they would, and it made our house smell soooo great. I had bought a bunch of Holstein ornaments and surprised him with them while we were decorating our tree. He has an Aggie train and we set it up with a snowy tree skirt, cute trees, and a dairy barn that we found on sale.

So, now, each year we go pick out a real tree, eat at CiCi's afterwards (don't ask), and come home and set it up and decorate it. Well, mostly I decorate it. Scott is in charge of keeping it watered. I saw a cute idea on Pinterest where a couple had saved the bottom part of the trunk of their Christmas trees for each year they had been married and wrote the year and something significant about that year (baby's first Christmas, etc.) We are going to start that this year and Scott says our tree from last year is out in the back 40 so he's going to get a slice of that trunk as well (we may fib and cut an extra for our first year.) 

Here are a few of our other Christmas decorations. I didn't decorate as much this year because, well, 1. I'm pregnant and tired, and 2. we're about to move.

I love collecting small, ornamental Christmas trees.
I'd have them everywhere if I could.

Image from my front door. My mother made the Nativity out of
plaster of Paris when she was in college and passed it down
to me a few years ago. Quite possibly my very favorite decoration-
so beautiful in it's simplicity.

Homemade Christmas stockings- The "P" is for Pepper, and those
are fire hydrants if you can't tell. One "S" for Scott and one for me-
his has airplanes and mine has music notes.

New way to display an old favorite. My super crafty Auntie Linda
handmade all of these cards. This year, I put them under
the glass of my coffee table to sort of "frame" them and keep them safe.