Ornaments on the tree

For the past few years,buying the tree and decorating it was something I didn't participate in. It wasn't a conscious boycott or anything like that it's just that I worked every weekend so Rich and Lillianna picked out the tree on a Saturday and when I got home on Sunday it was all done. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy the beauty.

Since I don't work all weekend anymore,just an occasional 4 hours on a rare Saturday,I was home when Rich and Lillianna began to decorate the tree today. In the olden days when I decorated the tree,each and every ornament was in it's original box and I always wrote who it was from and the year. If it was a homemade ornament it would be wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a labeled plastic Ziploc bag. After Christmas I would take each ornament down and put it back where it went for the next year.

Today,I opened our Rubbermaid Christmas containers and I found.....CHAOS!!!!!!
My beautiful seraphim ornaments from our first Christmas were out of their individual velvet box and lay wrapped in tissue paper in the big container. I quickly unwrapped each one and found 2 of their boxes. The last one had to stay in the tissue paper. I don't know what happened to her box over the years.

I picked out the ornaments and handed Lillianna the light ones since the heavy ones fall off the tree even if we put them in the way back of the branch. I miss my old fake tree. It was bittersweet to find all the ornaments that said "Baby's 1st Christmas" or had Lillianna's name on it from 1997. She was only 3 months old.
Now she's 10 and that first Christmas seems light years away.

Every year I have tried to buy an ornament for me and Rich that says how many Christmases we've been together. This will be our 13th married Christmas. It seems so weird. When we were in Disney for our honeymoon I bought so many bride and groom ornaments that said "Our 1st Christmas." We were only married one month before we celebrated Christmas that year. I was so excited.

I'll make sure that I am always a part of putting up the ornaments from now on.It's important to remember the happy years that we have shared together and know that even though we have gone through some tough times,we are still here to decorate the tree again this year.