Our Perfect Tree

I read a blog post recently by someone who, more or less, said they’d learned that they were not going to have a ‘perfect’ tree as long as they had small kids.  The author’s reasoning was that kids make ornaments, and, in a nutshell, that made for a messy tree, and she was just going to have to accept that (for the meantime—I suppose until those pesky kids stopped making ornaments and wanting to choose them, too).

That made me sad.

I guess, to many a “perfect” tree is a pretty generic, impersonal item.  Say, one at a department store, or maybe only with ornaments that match the drapes and upholstery or all fall within a scheme.  Perfect trees can’t ever have colored lights—except maybe gold.

By that definition, my tree is a catastrophe.  I like colored lights—and gaudy ones, to boot.  Every ornament is unique.  Everyone gets what they like each year as a personal choice ornament, which, if they like, can serve as the foundation of their own tree when they’re grown (though, I hope I get to keep some of the ones from their earliest years).  I can see that in a year or two it’ll be time to have a children’s tree because we’re running out of space to fit all our eclectic mishmash on one tree.  And, I think it’s pretty dang great.

As you can see, we also had a few snowflake making sessions.  It’s as close to the real thing as we get here.  :)