The Princess Tree

You know me, always coming up with new programs and traditions for our family.  I just can't HELP myself! ;-)

This year, I had the fun idea for a Christmas tree.  Some years, we get two trees, depending on how I feel and the space we have.  I liked having a tree in our Garden Room last Christmas so I was planning on doing it again this year.  But I thought I would take it a step further.

As our boys have gotten married, I've appreciated that it's expensive to build a home in the beginning.  And one of those expensive purchases around the holidays?  Christmas tree decorations.  I remember the first year that John and I were married, we had all of three ornaments (one of which I still have).  Add to that lights and a tree topper, and it's definitely not cheap.  So I got to thinking and came up with the idea to "donate" the second tree to a specified someone each year.  It worked like this:

Someone in the family "claims" the tree as theirs.  They come up with the theme for the tree.  John and I provide the tree, the lights and the basic bulbs.  The rest of us then use our creative minds to decorate the tree.  The only caveat is that the person who claims the tree must be here for Christmas and preferably Thanksgiving.  In other words, I'm not decorating a tree for someone who isn't here to help and/or enjoy it.

So after sending out the idea on the family text, it only took a couple of minutes for Rebecca to claim the tree for Baby.  And the idea was simple:  a princess tree.  And Rebecca chose the colors:  champagne and pink.

Holy smokes.  The women of the family went all out.  I knew Allison would be the champion creative person, and she certainly came through, creating large 3-D scene-scapes of animated princess movies (I believe Mark might have helped as well).  And Hannah wasn't far behind, making smaller bulbs, decorated with the colors of the different animated movies.  And Glo?  She hand drew scenes of princesses, laminated them and mounted them on cardboard.  And each ornament had some fun little bling hanging from it.

Allison's "Little Mermaid"

Allison's "Mulan" ornament

Hannah's "Snow White" ornament.  Isn't it just darling with the bow?  It was probably my favorite ornament on the tree.

Glo's "Mulan" ornament

 Glo's "Beauty and the Beast".  See the little tea cups and saucers hanging from the bottom?

Poor Rebecca and me. We aren't as artistically gifted as the rest.  Rebecca did better than me with little plastic bead necklaces to hang on the branches.  But me?  Oh my gosh, I had Rebecca help me assemble mine, and it was obvious that my ornaments were sending the very wrong message.  I had bought plastic bulbs (like everyone else) and had thought I could fill them with pink and white plastic beads and throw in Barbie princess shoes and accessories into the mix.  Unfortunately, most of the shoes looked like "hooker boots", and the ornaments themselves each weighed about five pounds.  So in the end, they didn't even make it on the tree.

I bought the 40 pack of bulbs at Target in the perfect colors along with some pink glitter pine cones and pink songbird ornaments.  I also splurged and got the cutest little white bulb lights.  I also found this fabulous tree-topper star that was covered in glittery lights.

As a final touch, we covered the tree in tradition icicles (and John showed everyone the proper way to do it--one strand at a time).

I could hardly believe how beautiful the tree looked.  I would never have chosen to have a pink tree for Christmas, but I liked it far more than our traditional tree in the living room.  In fact, I left it up after all the other decorations had been packed away, because it just looked so lovely in our Garden Room.

And when we finally did pack it up?  We sent all of the decorations home with Ethan and Rebecca so that they can use them to decorate their tree next year.

Fun, huh?