Hellobee Boards

To me....a tree w memories & meaning is so more important than a pinterest tree! I love that your kids artwork is on your tree! And I bet they feel so special!

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Ours is a big mash up too. One thing I love the look of is to put extra lights on our pre lit tree. We have tons of ornaments - a few kid things (only my favorite ones go up since we have too many), ornaments people gave us, ones from my growing up, ones from places we’ve been and life events, etc. I love a tree with tons of ornaments! We’re not home so I’ll have to look for a photo.

Last year I redid the tree on New Years (for Covid fun, left it up longer than usual) with just white and gold and silver (mostly used what we had a bought some filler on clearance). It loved it so if I had a second tree that might be my theme. Found a picture of this one!

Ours is a mix too, of ornaments I liberated from my parents, ornaments we’ve collected as a couple, ornaments the kids have made, etc. I try to filter from year to year the homemade ones because there’s only so many “three popsicle sticks glued together with glitter” ornaments I can handle.

@Lahela017: Do you pick on behalf of your daughter, or let her pick? We have this tradition too but I let them pick, which in retrospect was a huge mistake! I always hope they’ll pick somebody representative of who they were/what they loved that year and instead they just pick something they think looks cool - this year my five year old picked a Star Trek ship that plays scenes from the movie Picard when you press a button.

Ours is just meaningful ornaments on a pre- lit tree. The past few years I've had the kids make ornaments. We also have mine from growing up and my SIL has given us some really nice ones each year. This year I also got one for each kid to represent a book we read together (we spent 5 months listening to the series).

@mrs.kiwi: yes, we do so we spend a LOT of time reading together. And they are young enough they forget what we read a year later. So I am hoping yearly reading ornaments will help them remember all our time together reading!

The homemade ones I get to pick what we make so they are actually nice enough to want to keep. We work it into our homeschool as a handicraft and then gift to all the grands and keep some for us.

I love seeing all the trees. Like many of you we collect an ornament to represent a big trip or activity. This year DH and I snuck away for a trip to NYC and I'm getting him a metro card ornament. Usually we top the tree with a glittery poinsettia flower. Unfortunately this year when we unpacked the prelit tree the top didn't light. It was looking a little wonky but we didn't want to stop decorating to fix it so I jokingly added the head to my nephew's birthday pinata.

@Corduroy: haha, that topper!!! Love it!

@josina: super fun they’re mostly homemade!

@Corduroy: So awesome!

This is how I decorated our humble little tree, except we added one more string of lights. All of the ornaments are from my childhood - 90% of them are wooden and look so nostalgic and cute. I have one ornament that I “made” in kindergarten that’s survived all these years.

Our tree is definitely a tree of memories. I have some from when I was little and same from DH. I get a photo ornament each year of the boys and am kicking myself for not always buying a duplicate as it would be nice to gift those to them when they get older but also have one for myself. Then we have ornaments from places we've been together or separately as I started buying an ornament while traveling a long time ago. So fun to reminisce!

I love my tree topper. It's just a star cut out of cardboard that is covered in tinfoil with a hole cut in the center for a light to poke through and keep it on the tree. Many years back when my grandparents were first married, they didn't have any money so this is what my grandpa made to put on their tree. My mom and dad did the same and my 3 brothers and I have kept the same tradition alive on our own trees.