Trimming A Sentimental Christmas Tree

by Handan & Greg @ The Navage Patch

2 Materials

$80

2 Hours

Easy

As we always use a real tree, our trees never have the perfect shape that faux trees have. But let me tell you: it is pretty easy to give your real tree the perfect shape! It just takes an extra easy step and that is all about it. But before showing you how we trim our Christmas tree, allow me tell you about our sentimental Christmas ornament tradition, which I am sure you'll enjoy to hear it. When Greg and Margo (Greg’s sister) were kids, Mom started to buy or make themed ornaments for them each Christmas which commemorated the major events in their lives that year. She would also write a clever caption and the year on those ornaments. She would then gift Greg and Margo with those ornaments on Christmas eve for them to hang on the tree. When grandchildren arrived, Mom continued this tradition with them. I learned about Mom’s Christmas tradition when Barish received his first sentimental ornament, and ever since, it has become our Christmas tradition too. Every year, I buy or make Christmas ornaments for Barish, Greg, Penny & Pepper (our dogs) and for myself to commemorate our major events in that year. Here are some of our ornaments from previous years.

And the stories behind the ornaments:

1. When Greg was working in Boston, he lived in a pretty small apartment. The year he moved to a bigger apartment, Mom gave him an astronaut ornament with a clever note saying “Space! I got more space!” 1996

2. Like all kids, Greg also loved his toys. So much so that at age 5, he couldn’t bear the thought of parting with his beloved toys, so he asked Mom if he could take them with him to college. The toy box ornament was given to him with a note saying “Greg’s toys for college!” LOL

3. Until we moved to America, we always lived in furnished rentals. Therefore, we never were able to hang anything on the walls, as our rental places usually came with certain rules. When we moved to our house in America, Barish was ecstatic. He grabbed all his drawings from his box and said “I have my first real room!” About an hour later when I went to his room to see what the was doing, I saw all the walls covered with his drawings.

4. Shortly after we moved to our home (Oct 2013), we realized we had the cutest neighbors ever: a red fox family! Luckily our backyard is fenced in, so our dogs could never disturb this lovely family. Although they leave every spring to discover the world, they always come back to their den every winter. As Barish was the first one to see our sweet neighbors, this ornament belongs to him.

Now that you saw some our ornaments and have a better idea on our tradition , let me take you through the process of our tree decoration. The first step is setting up the tree. As we usually go for a tree at least 9 feet tall, we use Mom & Dad’s old tree stand, because it is the heaviest and strongest one that we could possibly find. Right after we put the tree into the stand, we also secure it with wires that we attach to our baseboard. It is so the tree never falls which is a scary situation – oh yes! we went through it once with our very first tree and don’t want to go through that again. Luckily no body was hurt and no ornaments were broken!

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CLICK HERE TO GET THE STEP-BY-STEP TUTORIAL on how to decorate your real Christmas tree.

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Now that looks like a nicely-trimmed Christmas tree, doesn’t it? All the gaps are filled as much as possible and the branches spread out more evenly!

I’ll admit that it is definitely not like a designer tree. As our ornaments are pretty simple we tend keep our tree decoration also simple. But what we love about our Christmas tree is that it speaks to us – loud and proud, as it tells the fun and sweet memories of our lifetime. And I don’t think any designer tree could ever beat that!

I hope you enjoyed our ornament tradition and Christmas tree decoration. Do you have any Christmas traditions that you’d like to share with us? You know I would love to hear all about it!