Christmas Trees.  There are so many varieties and ideas behind this.  Some don't do trees at all, some people are fake tree people and some are real tree people.  Whatever, everyone has an opinion and thought.  We are fake tree people.  We had a real tree and I hated watering it.  In fact, I would forget and towards the end I just wouldn't do it.  It was so dry and brittle and the needles would fall off just by looking at it.  In college my parents bought a fake tree and I didn't even notice.  It had a real tree trunk look which I have not been able to find a fake tree like that since.  Sometimes I wish that we had a family tradition to go out to the mountains and find that perfect tree and drink hot cocoa and each grill cheese sandwhiches or chili but realistically we would never get out to the mountains.  We are a rec soccer family and spend more time at the Sportsplex than anywhere else.  I think that most of our weekends are already planned anyways. So with not watering the tree, and not looking to make time to get a tree, a fake tree just seems to fit our family. 

Now to the ornaments.  Last year I posted about the many ornaments that are special to us.  We make it a family event with John putting the star on top of the tree.  This year we kept putting off decorating the tree for one reason or another.    Finally we gathered together to decorate and Job said, "I don't want to decorate the tree can't we leave it plain with the lights.  I don't like it all cluttered up."  (This coming from the kid who has all his Lego creations piled everywhere on a shelf and who jams his clothes into his closet.)  The other two wanted to decorate so we didn't it simply.  We hung all the ornament balls that we have and the gold colored leaves cut from screen and that's about it.  The colors are gold (the main color), white, a little red and splash of silver.  I love the sparkly white lights.  We've had red lights on the tree in other years but I love little white lights and when strings of red burnt out I was happy.

Now the kids each have a little prelit tree in their room and they are piled on with bead garland, more strings of lights and as many ornaments as they can possible hang on the branches.  Any more and you wouldn't be able to see the trees.  I bought the trees after Christmas when they were on sale. This makes their room a little festive as well.

The placement of the tree has been a problem.  One year or two we had it infront of our living room window.  That worked out great but we have too much stuff now and that won't work.  We've had it in the family room but the kids are too rambuncious and it fell over.  (That's when we had to replace our topper.)  It just didn't feel right in there.  It was too cluttered with toys and only one place to sit, on John's Lazy Boy. It just didn't work.  Now we place it in the entryway.  I move the white bench to our room and it seems like a perfect spot.  I can see the tree lit up through the glass of the door and it is tucked in a corner but also within view of the livingroom.

This year I bought a remote control for the lights.  I may have to go back to Fred Meyers after Christmas for the outside lights.  I love not having to reach around and plug in and unplug the lights.  It seemed as though we'd lose ornaments that way because of messing with the tree.  Now we just hit a button and they turn off and on.  Love it.