In the Dickens household, we have a "personal" tree. From now on, it will be referred to as "The Dickens Tree".
It's full of 100% unique ornaments. No balls. No colored theme.
Every year Saint Nick brings us a new ornament. And it's personal to each of us. Whether it be a hobby we love, a character we love, or something relating to our life or an experience. I have an ornament from just about every year since I was born.
While I was home over Thanksgiving, we decorated The Dickens Tree with all our personal ornaments. Before heading back to Florida, my mother asked if I wanted to take some of my ornaments back home with me. My answer was a firm "hell no!"
This tree has so much meaning to me. To my family. It would not be the same without my ornaments on it. Plus, I WILL continue to decorate this tree with my family every year. It might not always get to be on the tradition of Thanksgiving night, but it WILL happen! I refuse to let this lifestyle end those things that mean so much to me.
I want Nick and I have to this same type of tree. And he agrees. Sure, we don't really have many ornaments but I was surprised by how many we do have! We have a few from the year 2009 (our engagement year) and quite a few "Our First Christmas" ornaments. We've already received a few from family members over the years of dating.
We set the tree up before we left for Thanksgiving in St. Louis. We did so so that when we returned, we could get right to decorating it!!!! I was so excited! I LOVE Christmas time and refused to let one day go by beyond Thanksgiving without our house being Christmas-fied! Here are just a few pictures of us setting up the tree:
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| Vino inspecting the tree |
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| Spreading out the branches |
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| Ta-Da! |
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| Our First Tree, all set up! |
Tonight, we decorated our tree. It was fun to go through all the ornaments we collected over the years and talk about who gave it to us and for what reason.
We had to add in some boring ball ornaments to our sentimental tree to fill in the spaces since we do not have many yet. But in a few years, those balls with be gone! If you refer to THIS post, you'll see it won't take long before we have tons of ornaments!!!
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| Nick putting his Weimaraner 'First Fur Baby' ornament from "St. Nick" on the tree |
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| I'm putting my Belle ornament from "St. Nick" on the tree |
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| Star topper! |
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| Wedding Ornament from the Melissa & Aunt Janet at my Bridal Shower Complete with our names and wedding date |
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| Penguins are our thing =) "Our First Christmas" This one is from my mother |
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| "Year of Remembrance" from Nick's Family 2009: Engagement Year |
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| Ornament from our Honeymoon (can we go back, yet?) |
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| Kelli & Susi got us this one as a gift for our Engagement Party |
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| Ornament from my wonderful sister |
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| "First Christmas in Our New Home" Perfect ornament from Brooke for our USNA Ornament Exchange |
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| "Our First Christmas" "St. Nick" (Nicholas) picked up an extra ornament for us for St. Nick's Day Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my husband?! |
In the future, I would LOVE to have more than one tree. It's not that I don't like the "boring ball" ornaments. But on a sentimental tree, they are definitely the boring ones.
But I do want a few trees in the house and each have a theme. Nick would love a ice blue tree and I would love a maroon and deep gold tree. I love the elegant looking trees with ribbons and gorgeous ball ornaments. [I also wouldn't mind adding a black and gold tree....repping my Alam mater compelte with lots of Mizzou ornaments!]
One day....hopefully soon we can start adding more trees to our Christmas Decor.
But for now, it's our sentimental tree...this tree that will ALWAYS be my favorite tree in our household no matter how many we add to the bunch.
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| Finished product with the lights on |
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| Finished product with the lights off |
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| standing beside our beautifully decorated First Christmas Tree |
To see many more pictures of setting up the tree and decorating it, please click HERE.
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