Christmas Tour

well, better late than never. so here it is. my contribution to the boomama christmas tour of homes 2008. and yes, i believe that i must post the complete and official title at every possible opportunity because well, i'm just like that. so, without further ado...welcome to my home...all hopped up on sugar and evergreens for the holidays.

first, say 'hello' to fred...no that's not an official name or something. it just sounded appropriate. this, by far, has to be the largest tree i have ever seen in anyone's living room...especially mine. we have had some large trees in the past but this one is absolutely mammoth. it has taken me the past two days to get used to it being in our living room. all day yesterday i would walk into the living room and jump because "ahh, what was this gigantic thing that was taking up a large portion of my living room." and here's fred in the dark...
isn't he charming? my husband promised when we moved into this house that i could pick out the largest tree that i could find. he actually refers to my taste as a 'christmas bush' because he says they are round and don't even have a shape. but, i think he may be wishing to take back the statement about having any one i wanted and i am insisting that the one this year has a tree shape.

so let's take a closer look at what fred is wearing...this is my favorite ornament of all. it always gets put on the very front of the tree so i can see it as i walk by. this ornament has a little story behind it. i believe i blogged about it last year but i'll give an abridged version for anybody who didn't read my tour last year. three years ago this thanksgiving i gave birth to our third child. i have always suffered with ppd after the births of our children but this one was particularly painful but i was also trying to fight it with all i had in me. in our old house, the chair i would sit in to cuddle and nurse our baby was directly in front of the christmas tree and one day i realized that this ornament was there...staring me in the face. for the rest of the christmas season i focused on that ornament whenever things were going particularly bad. did the ppd go away because of it? no. but it always reminded me that because of what was going on in that manger at the base of our tree, that there was hope, and He would see me through the depression and the pain and He would make me stronger because of it. redemptive suffering. true beauty.

now, on to fred's other adornments.

every year each of the children receive an ornament for the tree. the 'joy cross' belongs to our oldest. we began getting crosses for her when she was born and the ones that sport her middle name are her preferred ones. i just wish that ornament makers would realize that there are quite a few verses in the Bible referring to 'joy.' there are only so many ornaments that say "for the joy of the Lord is our strength" that one can put together on a tree. :) the other cross belongs to our youngest. she always gets an ornament of a nativity scene and i just loved this one. the thomas belongs to our middle child. he has received one of the hallmark puppies for the past five years, but the series ended, so i let him pick something else. he chose trains, so there you have it.

fred is also wearing some things that remind us of those we have lost like these two..the small white angel is the ornament my grandmother gave me while she dying of cancer. she died three days later. and the other angel is the ornament that we purchased this year for noel francis, our little baby we miscarried six years ago. each of the angels we have bought serve as a reminder to me that i may have lost one of my children but in that i also received a tremendous gift. i have a saint in heaven who loves me dearly and is praying for each member of our family every day.

there are also some things which remind us of funnier moments too...

like the heart with a picture of my husband and i on our first christmas morning. when we unpacked it the other day i remarked how young and unassuming we looked. he remarked how especially young i looked. i'm not sure how old he thinks i look now, but in the interest of a friendly night, we won't bridge that topic. there is also the mayor and coroner of munchkin land that the kids especially liked this year after watching the movie for the first time a few months ago. i have to admit it was really nice not having to explain to them who these two little strange men were that we were putting on our tree.

and under fred sits our nativity scene..you will note that the only people there as of yet are the shepherds and stable hand type people. mary, joseph and the donkey are over here...on the kitchen window. i was pretty pleased with how this little display turned out. and my son thought it was particularly nice that the sea monkeys had their very own christmas tree.

our advent wreath also has a nativity theme.we light the candles every night before dinner and then we sing a verse of 'o come, o come emmanuel.'

we also put up our jesse treeand read stories from this wonderful bookto trace the lineage of our Savior. the kids love this and can't wait to see what ornament they will get to hang on the tree each day.

and the kids also have their little trees in their bedrooms


and no christmas tour would be complete without showing you this decoration......the blue chair. every year in the old house we put the christmas tree in the spot that was usually occupied by this blue chair. so, it would go into our son's room. well, i thought that we could leave it in the living room this year but considering fred's girth, it wasn't possible. so there it sits, in my son's room.

well, if you're still with me after all of that, it's the end of the tour. i'll try and get pictures of our outdoor decorations up in a few days. but you know, that would take getting the outdoor decorations put up in a few days. :)

make sure to stop over to boomama' site and journey into everybody else's home tours. i was number four hundred and something so don't try to tackle it all in one night.