O Christmas Tree

 

Every December I can ever remember there has been a real Christmas tree in our living room. Whether we went and chopped it down straight from the mountains, or picked one out of a tree lot. It was always an adventure tying it to the top of our car and driving home while singing Christmas carols, eating candy canes, and every few minutes asking my mom and dad, "is it still up there?" All of us would be so giddy and excited bringing the tree home and getting it ready to decorate. Together as a family we would play the Christmas music loud and start decorating our tree. One tradition my parents started when they were first married, was to get a new ornament every year for our tree that represented that year for us (Daniel and I have started this tradition for our little family as well.) It was always fun to find "our" ornaments from the years we were born, and reminisce about the past Christmases- "this one is from when dad was deployed, this one is from the year we got our first puppy Samson." Covered from top to bottom with our collection of handmade ornaments, and those ornaments that we had grown up putting on the tree every December, and the tree topper is always a paper angel I made when I was in Kindergarten out of a paper plate and glitter. The result is always the most perfect and beautiful tree that we've ever seen.  This is our first Christmas that we won't be with family. It's hard for me to think about not being with them during this season, but as soon as we brought our little tree into our flat and that familiar scent of pine filled the air-I felt at home again.