Tis the season
Over the past couple years, we have gotten pretty bad about getting our Christmas tree up and really getting any Christmas decorations up before Christmas. So this year, my wife wanted to get the tree up as soon as possible.
Well, last night we were able to get the kids together with their significant others and get the tree up and decorated and it looks awesome. During the past holiday seasons as our kids have gotten older, there seemed to be less of the magic of Christmas, and my wife came to the realization that it was because we as parents weren't making it magical.
Part of the reason we always put off setting up the tree is because of these little turds here. The cats always get into the tree and pull stuff off of it and we normally find ornaments and pieces of the tree all over the house.
I am not sure what it is about the tree that makes all the cats go crazy. It might be the lights, or it might be that they have a new place to hang out.
But after a few minutes, they always end up biting crap and sometimes they even try and climb up the branches.
This is Dusty's first Christmas, so it will be interesting to see how much trouble he gets in with the tree. Sophie and Sammy, who are a lot older, don't seem to care too much about the tree. Sophie would rather cuddle with me and Sammy likes to just lay by himself.
You can tell that he is already trying to find a way to get into trouble.
Titus is really good about staying back from the tree and not getting into it, but Harley does not have much situational awareness and usually ends up running into the tree or standing too close to it wagging his tail and knocking all sorts of stuff off of it.
Titus just wants to be near us and he doesn't care too much about the tree. I think he does feel an energy shift in the home when it is up though.
One of the cool things about our tree is that we have so many ornaments that we have collected over the years and they all have some special meaning to them. Like this one that we got for our son's first Christmas almost 20 years ago.
We also try and get as many different types of ornaments and colors that we can so our tree is full of color.
I actually got this tree a few years back the day after Christmas when all the Christmas stuff is super marked down. I got it from Hobby Lobby for like $60 because it was a used tree and it was returned because the people said that the lights didn't work. But when we set it up the next year, I just plugged everything in and it all worked just fine. So it was cool to get a $600 tree for $60.
This is the Abominable Snowman from the old Rudolph movie. I don't remember when we got this one.
These santa things were so cool when I was younger. My parents had them on our tree and I would play with them all the time, so when I found them in a store, I knew we needed to get it.
Our favorite ornaments are the ones that our kids made when they were really young. About 5 years ago though, Harley and another dog that we had back then broke out of their kennels while we were gone, knocked the tree down and ate the majority of the ornaments we had back then. It was a really sad day for my wife because we lost so many cool handmade ornaments from our kids. But we are looking forward to making ornaments with our grandkids one day soon.
When I was younger, my grandma had a bunch of these sock monkeys in her house, so it was cool to find ornaments of them.
I am glad that we got the tree up so early and that we are making an effort to be more festive this year. We just need to make sure these little turds aren't stealing stuff and trying to knock the tree over.
Does your family put their tree up early? What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
Wow, these shots are incredible. When someone asks me what Christmas really looks like, I'll show them these as part of my response. It's lovely that you an your wife are making an effort on bringing magic back to your Christmas, for your kids, even though they're all grown up. I'm sure they will love it!
I'm kind of living vicariously through you in this matter. I moved to my current place rather recently and Christmassy decoration hasn't been among my priorities. I'm regretting that a bit, so I'm thinking about making DIY stuff to put around the place. I don't like bright reds and greens, I'd rather have nice, soft lights and silver/gold ornaments.
Btw, it's so cool that most of your decoration pieces have a story behind. I really like that.
Thanks for the comment. You really should make some ornaments and stuff to put around the house to help brighten things up.
Yea especially when hive hits ATH rite before Thanksgiving dinner! Haha! What a great year to first get into crypto!
Ya, that was pretty awesome to watch. Hopefully we can stay around the $2 mark or more from here on out.
yea... i'd like to accumulate some more hive below $1 so i hope korea gets its foot off the gas peddle haha
You got some awesome old school ornaments! I don't know what looks cooler the Christmas stuff or the cats interacting with it! hahaha