Christmas Decorating Themes and Traditions

Ever since year in mid November I start itching to decorate for Christmas. I haven't ventured down to the locker to find my Christmas stuff yet because it is a little terrifying down there right now (what happened to that cleaning out job I did?), but I AM heading out to my Dad's house this weekend to begin the process at his house!

Now, my Dad is crazy about Christmas. I cannot even properly describe to you the amount of decorations we have. I think there are 13 large bins (red and green bins, of course!) and two giant storage spaces devoted just to storing our Christmas stuff.And 90% of it actually makes it out on display every year.

I have specific ways that everything HAS to be done. Certain decorations go in certain places and there is a rhythm to how to best lay everything out. I used to do 100% of the set up, but now that I have moved out it is more like 70%. Still takes me a couple weekends! The best part is that my dad is in charge of taking everything down in January and he is much more organized than me so everything is amazingly neat and labeled by room when I pull it out in November. He gets me.

Anyway, this long rant was leading to Christmas Trees! I love to decorate the tree each year, and lucky for me I get to decorate FOUR trees. My dad has three artificial ones at his place, and my mom buys a real tree each year for her home. Each tree has slowly built up a collection of decorations that I love to pull out every year. At my dad's one tree is pure red and gold and is beautiful, another is covered in large baubles, stuffed animals, trains, and blinking lights, and the third (where we open gifts) is 100% family decorations, souvenirs, and things with meaning. At my mom's house it is another tree covered in meaning and history.

This year is my first year having a tree. While I would love to cover the tree with meaningful items, I am not willing to steal from my family trees (that is their home!) and I certainly do not have a collection of ornaments. Therefore this year I plan to buy most of my ornaments and hopefully my tree will organically evolve over the years to a beautiful tree full of memories.

So, because I am buying decorations, it made sense to pick a fun theme to make my tree look uniform and pretty. I toyed originally with a homespun feel (with felt owls), but then I came across these:

It was love at first sight! I knew my tree wanted colour! So my theme for the tree is MARDI GRAS! Picture bright colours and brightly coloured birds and feathers! I can't wait! I am thinking of getting a smaller tree, though, because right now I have a six foot monster of a tree and 12 decorations. haha

Speaking of my tree, I totally paid only $15 for a full size pre-lit tree. Craigslist in March is totally the place to buy Christmas trees :). Plus the couple who sold me the tree (they were moving) told me it was their 'spare' tree and had only be set up once. Who the heck has a spare tree in a condo??