Our Tree

It has only been in the past two years that we've done a live tree, and I don't think I'll ever go back to artificial again. Since I leave my tree out so long, I'd always thought that a live tree would wind up losing every needle and turning brown as it got closer to Christmas, but so not the case.

Harleigh and I went out Saturday and she talked me into getting an 8' one! In past years the tree has gone in the ken, but this year we decided to put it up in the living room. And so I agreed to getting something a little more worthy of all that space and ceiling height. In an effort to de-stress the holiday season this year, my girl and I agreed to decorating our tree with no trips back and forth to the attic. I love my collected ornaments dearly, but we just knew we could create a spectacular tree using pretties that can be tossed or used after the tree comes down.

Harleigh offered to make ornaments out of scrapbook paper and found a pattern for origami boxes, which we just tucked into the branches. While at Hobby Lobby that day, I chanced upon a big batch of white ball fringe on clearance . . . perfect garland. 600 lights later, a sprinkling of tinsel, candy canes on the branches and a quilt wrapped around her base, here is our tree (lovingly captured by Ali!).