A pic from Christmas Eve last year.
It's been fun merging our family traditions and trying to figure out how WE will celebrate the holidays. We've had to each make compromises, but so far it's really worked out and I'm excited to see what the rest of the season has to bring. Here are some questions we've had to tackle:
1. When do we put up the tree?
My family has always put up our trees the weekend of thanksgiving. Generally we'll go shopping on Black Friday, come home, marvel at our awesome buys, get on some comfy clothes and bring out the Christmas stuff. My family usually does a Friday-Saturday marathon to get all the decorations out and put up that weekend.
Stephen stringing lights on the tree last Christmas.
Stephen's family, on the otherhand, usually puts up the tree the first or second weekend in December. BUT since Stephen loves, loves, loves everything associated with Christmas, we were both excited to put up the tree the weekend of Thanksgiving!
2. Real or artificial tree?
Now this decision was hard for both of us. My mom absolutely refuses to have a real tree, so I've been brought up with artificial trees my whole life, save a few years when my dad "won" and we got a real tree.
Stephen's family, however, ALWAYS has a real tree. And I have to admit there's something magical about hiking through rows and rows of christmas trees in the snow, with your scarves and hats and axes searching for that perfect tree to bring home. I love mini day-trips and last year when I went with Stephen's family to chop down trees, I had a blast as we made a whole afternoon of it.
After chopping down Stephen's family trees last Christmas.
BUT, seeing as how we are currently residing in an apartment, with new, pretty light colored carpet and neither of us is too partial to vacuums, we decided to go ahead and settle with an artificial tree this year.
3. What kind of artificial tree do we want?
Once we decided to go artificial, we had to figure out where and what kind of artificial tree we wanted for our place. We instantly feel in love with this beauty from Garden Ridge:
It, however, was $400! And well, as a student myself and with Stephen just starting a new job, we definitly could not yet afford that. We did decide, however, that we could take the aspects that we liked about it and create the perfect, affordable, tree just for us. We loved the natural look of the above tree and the lighter, softer green of the pine. We liked the pine cones and how it felt a little "rustic." We decided to run with that theme, kind of a quasi country, rustic, home-made, traditional Christmas full of pine cones, home-made ornaments and vintage ornaments from both our parents' own ornament collections. My mom let us borrow one of her older artificial trees, so we ended up getting a tree for FREE! Which is always awesome!
So these are the major hurdles we've had to cross (it's crazy that it's only the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we've got so much done!). I'm sure there will be a lot more of merging Christmas traditions and I can't wait.
I'll be sure to post more pics of this Christmas as the events unfold! Merry early Christmas!
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