Last weekend I made my yearly trek to IKEA to pick up the Christmas tree. This year, my orders were to find that fattest, most robust and healthy looking tree I could locate. I am not sure if that was a back-handed way of saying that my previous Christmas tree picking expertise was just not up to snuff (exasperated!).

Good news for this year, is that Anu was impressed with how full a tree I selected! So was I - after cutting the twine keeping it compact. Meanwhile, the kids were just happy to have it, and get decorating.

After cutting off the bottom part (to let the water soak into the tree more readily... I drilled a hole in the centre - bottom ... and secured the tree stand. Fortunately, after doing this a few years, it wasn't difficult at all this year. 

After several rounds of setting up the LED lights... the boys and Anu jumped to work getting the ornaments hung. They have such fun setting these up on the tree. We have kept it fairly simple with just four different ornaments of wick, a small angel, and small mock red Christmas gifts. 

An additional ornament of which my father & mother in law - made a tradition - are the silver Christmas ball ornaments, shown in the photo. These are very light silver balls, engraved with each of our initials. They were given to us, one per year at Christmas, for each of our family member. Given that my father in law was a goldsmith, it seemed like such a creative, and appropriate Christmas gift for our family. This is one lovely little tradition, I cherish, and love to remember each time we unpack the ornaments when the children decorate the tree.

Please tell me about your family traditions over Christmas. Even the small ones, like this little story - are the ones that make this time unique, and memorable.