Trim the Tree and Wrap The Presents...

...Okay so I'm not on the present wrapping stage yet, but the last thing we got done on Sunday (after the baseboards and the couch) was to put up our Christmas tree!  I have such great memories of decorating our tree as a kid.  My mum, my sister and I would crank the tunes (Mariah, Kenny & Dolly, the Judds, to name a few favs) and set to work.  We always loved reminiscing over each ornament as we unwrapped it.  We also always loved that our parents kept every ornament we ever made them, at school or at home - it makes you feel so proud as a kid!  Then when we were done, we'd call our dad in and he would put up the angel.  Our tree was always a good mix of some of my mum's nice ornaments and our homemade ones (as well as some my mum made!)

Now that I've moved out and have my own house - and that I'm not great with change, especially when it comes to tradition - I've tried to keep a lot of our traditions.  I knew that I didn't want a perfect looking tree for our house.  I wanted a tree filled with memories and stories.  When my sister and I moved out, my mum unloaded a lot of those homemade ornaments on us, and we were grateful as we had none anyways!  So now, on my tree, I have many of the ornaments that I made when I was little.  They always make me giggle when I take them out. 

Here are a few of my favs, most of which I made in elementary school years:

A safety pin beaded angel (one of our uncle's mom was really into crafting and she would have us over to make ornaments, so a few of these were under her guidance)

A sparkly beaded spider

A mod-podge wrapping paper ball from I think Grade 4!

A creepy red-eyed bunny thing

A dough painted snowman

And then a couple of years ago I went through a phase of making ornaments out of burned out light bulbs...

The (unfinished) Grinch, he's supposed to have a Santa hat on

Cindy Lou Who - ghost eyed and mouthless...I forgot about her and never got around to finishing her

I always loved the way the round part of the bulb played up the roundness of her cartoon-baby head

(these lightbulb reindeer guys I had seen someone do on the internet somewhere years ago and wanted to try them out)

And our tree (with the tree skirt!)...

I'm sitting downstairs right now - because last night we officially moved everything back to the main floor!!!  And I can't even describe to you how happy I am about that.  Last Christmas we had a little 1 foot tall tree as decoration in our upstairs bedroom-turned-living-room because our regular tree wouldn't fit.  So this Christmas is extra special.

UPDATE:  I got home from work today to find that our tree had randomly toppled over and the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who didn't survive the fall...I guess I can scratch finishing them off my list!

How is your Christmas decorating going?  Are you into making your own ornaments or do you prefer to buy them?  Do you like to keep all the old ones you made as a kid at school?