Grandma's Tree

I'm so glad that this year Grandma returned to the tradition of having all the grand kids help her decorate her Christmas tree. At our house it's just not the same. We lost all our special ornaments when we moved into this house, so all we've got are a few plain boring non-breakable balls. We don't let the kids use tinsel because it's messy. We have the kind of fake tree that already has the Christmas lights built into it. We lost all our garland and haven't bought any more. So putting up the tree is kind of a five minute process. At least this year the kids made paper chains to hang on it. They've already eaten most of the candy canes that we hung on it.

At Grandma's house, though, it's a whole different story. All the ornaments are unique and interesting. Some of them have pictures on them. The kids each get a handful of tinsel to toss onto the tree in shining messy beautiful clumps. The chaos of so many little ones all helping decorate at once is half the fun! I remember one Christmas before Daniel and I had kids I went to the effort of designing our Christmas tree. I bought special purple velvet bows and hung them in orderly rows around the tree. I tied a large golden bow to the top with long ribbons draping down to the ground in evenly spaced intervals. It looked very neat and pretty. But it will never compare to the perfection of one of Grandma's Christmas trees decorated with the fun, excitement, and love of so many tiny little hands.