Trees from SantaSidetracked Sisters

trees One of my favorite holiday traditions was when I was probably about ten, which would make my younger sister, Judy, about five years old.

First of all, we need to note that she has always been very gullible and easy to tease and pull tricks on. When she was very little she was never part of putting up the Christmas tree at our house. I would coerce her into going to bed a lot earlier than she was used to. We would get ready for bed, me with my nightgown over my street clothes which she was not ever made aware of, and she in her jammies. When she FINALLY fell asleep I would sneak out of bed and go downstairs where the wonderful pine-smelling, large, most beautiful Christmas tree stood just waiting to be adorned with all of our family’s splendor. We always used different colored lights, and tinsel, of course, and had a long needle tree as my mom was allergic to pine and this was less irritating to her skin. This was done on the sly as we always told my younger sister that Santa had brought the tree and decorated it. She would come down and be unbelievably delighted. That certainly made it all worthwhile. Boy that Santa is a busy guy with decorating and getting all those presents done.

My mom would always give me free rain in decorating the house for Christmas. This would involve fresh, never artificial, pine branches, which I would strategically place on top of drapes, table tops, and wherever I felt needed a holiday touch. It is interesting, but I don’t remember ever being part of the cleanup of the dried-out evergreens that had to have fallen behind drapes and everywhere. I always hated using anything artificial as it just wasn’t the same, and certainly never gave off the wonderful pine smell that can always be associated with Christmas for me. Today you will see me using artificial just simply to avoid the short longevity and mess of fresh evergreens.

It is interesting to me now to realize how the decorating part of the holidays was so important as I still love doing it at this state of my life. I never like to do exactly the same type of decorating year after year, and just love to create something which I feel is beautiful.