A Simple, Sweet Christmas Tree This Year

I learned a good Christmas lesson this year when I realized we weren't going to have most of our Christmas decorations that are in storage far away. I knew we would be going simple without our big garlands, wreaths and most of the ornaments for our tree. But we did have one shoe box of a few things and our big wood star and two felt trees.

When I taught the gift wrapping class in early November I wrapped lots of little empty boxes to use as a display, so I though they would be great decoration for our mantle with the big star and two felt trees. Took about two seconds to put together. Then I made a LOT of paper chains this year. One is draped across the mantle with the driftwood garland that lives there permanently.Others are draped over art and furniture around the house. For our tree I made a very small paper chain, which ended up being very labor intensive but it really pulled out tree decorations together.

So I had a tree to decorate and about eight ornaments to work with. Not the greatest. Thankfully our tree is small, about four feet and sits on top of an old wood dresser with dark red doors and drawers. We added our few ornaments and then added the paper chain and it didn't look so bad after all. Then I found a bag of pine cones and tucked them in around the tree strategically. Over the holiday season we've been given a few ornaments and The Bug has made several which really added to our tree. I realized the other day that is looks quite perfect. There are plenty of decorations and some of them are new treasures.

It's been fun to shake things up a big with the decorating or lack of decorating this year. It feels fresh. There was nothing to be disappointed about this year, we had exactly what we needed and in the end what we have loved. Sometimes it's okay to forego the regular holiday traditions and do something different. I am realizing now that this is precisely the situation that helps us see things in new ways, find new things we like and find out what we are or aren't really attached to after all. I like that a lot.