A New Tradition?

For a variety of reasons, we never managed to put more than the lights on this year's Christmas tree. That is a good thing, as it turned out.

My girl tends to be a bit allergic to trees; they generally make her congested and her occasional asthma flares up. She has steadfastly maintained that it is worth it, however. Both kids are extremely resistant to the idea of an artificial tree. My girl can tell you exactly which table we were sitting at in a restaurant the year we announced our plans to get an artificial tree. She burst into tears, and my boy said in a most incredulous tone of voice, "I can't believe you would even think of doing such a thing." I thought the kids were going to walk out on us!

So we've continued to get a real tree year after year. However, this weekend my girl started getting really congested and coughing. And since she's singing a solo at the Christmas Eve service, we realized the tree had to go.

So now it is on our back porch, just outside the breakfast room window. It looks really pretty out there, especially at night when it's dark and the tree lights are on. Who knows? This may be our new tradition! For me, I love the fact that I've already vacuumed the dead tree needles from the living room floor and that I won't have to do that again this season!

I'm planning to put the gifts under and around a table displaying the nativity scene.