Holiday Tradition #3: Tree Decorating

Because we're just knocking 'em out one by one this weekend. That's how we roll.

Tonight's agenda included decorating the tree we put up this morning. (Funny story: Bryan had to knock on the door for us to open it as he brought in the tree. Zoey ran to open the door, was greeted by nothing but trunk and branches, and had a brief moment of terror as she realized the tree was COMING INSIDE THE HOUSE. She looked exactly like the cats do every year on tree-decorating day...wide-eyed, panicked, and just BEGGING the question 'what the hell is a tree doing IN our house?')

Anyway. Totally pumped about decorating the tree, since Bryan and I both love love love dragging out all the ornaments...his parents bought him an ornament every year until, I swear, like three years ago when I finally begged them to STOP THE MADNESS because our tree was going to fall over from the sheer weight of his childhood memories. Plus we have an ornament for just about every year we've been married, the ornaments we bought on our honeymoon in Maui...all very sentimental stuff. (You will be un-surprised and pleased to know that my Starbucks Cup ornament is displayed front and center this year.) We're carrying on Bryan's childhood tradition with Zoey by picking out an ornament each year representing something she's seriously in to at the moment. So far, she has several "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments, two kitties playing in a basket (her first favorite word was kitty), and last year's owl selection. This year we're trying to decide between something with Dora, Snoopy, or a gigantic Time-Out chair. It's a toss-up. And I'm sure that, when she's 31, she'll be all "Mom, for God's sake, quit with the ornaments already! I already have three Starbucks cups!"

So we drag the two big Rubbermaid bins filled with tree decor up the stairs, get all set for the ensuing mushy sentimentality, only to discover that Zoey wants to hang approximately two ornaments and call it good. Seriously, kid? Are you kidding? How can two gung-ho tree decorators produce someone so obviously missing the ORNAMENT GENE? (And they weren't even her ornaments. She plucked a random Winnie the Pooh from the box and then snuck off with a ceramic bell from her Daddy's childhood and proceeded to bang it around until I'm pretty sure Bryan had a mini-stroke.)

So, tree decorating. A big hit with the above-30 set in this household, not so much for the younger generation. I was left marveling that choosing a tree with many, many branches lends itself to many, many more ornaments than years past. I swear, last year we couldn't even fit them all on the tree...this year, we've got room to spare. Perhaps, Heather, you'd like to re-start the Ornament Every Year tradition?