Project 52 | Week 49

Our house gets her pretty on for the month of December.  She’s all decked out and has just the right amount of sparkle.  Our tree stands proud and tall in the living room (thank you Applecrest for providing us with the most perfect tree this year) and the sights of Christmas can be seen from most rooms in the house.  I wish I had more decorations because I truly love how festive everything looks all twinkly and bright.

The highlight is, of course, decorating the Christmas tree.  Our Mac Family ‘deck the halls’ tradition goes something like this: Tock pulls the boxes of decorations out from the 3rd floor, we set our Pandora station to holiday music and eat a really delicious (sometimes extravagant) dinner together, and then get down to business and decorate.  Actually I’m lying, sometimes we decorate and then eat.  And I think one year we decorated in the morning.  Shoot, maybe we don’t actually have a real tradition yet.  I’ll let you know next year.

Much like my photographs, our tree tells a story: The golden stocking with a puppy sticking out and my birth date engraved,  the wood carved ornament gifted to us from The Inn at Essex where Tock and I got married, the tiny fireplace where only 3 stockings hang for me, Tock, and our first baby, Teago, the delicate evergreen tree Tock and I bought from Frog Hollow right before we moved from Burlington, VT to Exeter, NH, the ornaments I painstakingly needle-pointed for the kids (with such lofty ambitions of making one for each of them every year).  All of these and more are nestled on the branches of our tree every year.  Hanging in between those memories are the kid’s handmade ornaments which they hang oh so proudly, usually while exclaiming something like “Oh! I remember this one!”, or “Look how small my hand print was!”.  After the star is gently placed on top of our tree, we shut off all the lights and just look at what we’ve created, our faces lit up by the soft glow of the Christmas tree lights, and our hearts content.  We’re all equally mesmerized.  Always.