Christmas is our favorite holiday and decorating the tree starts with choosing the tree: it has to be a tall bushy tree with plenty of rooms to accommodate our many decorations.

First we put on the lights, white ones mainly, but we’ve been known to add some color towards the base! Then tinsels, always bushy gold and red ones. Then comes the time for all the knickknacks we have accumulated over the years. Angels (ceramic and glass) towards the top of the tree, followed by Victorian brass bells, then Scandinavian-type mini sleds and wreaths in natural colors, glass snowflakes and ice drops, glass baubles collected through the years and mini wooden snowmen, birds and whimsical items.

We buy new Christmas decorations every year, mainly from small home style shops where we can find handmade items or less common designs, each child chooses one (but we can’t have cartoon characters! it has to be either religious, winter-related or nature-related) and I choose two more expensive and exclusive ones, like baubles with hand-painted details (we have some with gold cobwebs which cost me over $20 a piece from a very small shop in England).

Children also make some Christmas decorations of course and we keep those and add them to the tree at child’s level so that they can admire their handwork everyday!

We often get some from other children too and we end up with Jewish or Muslim decorations, which are awesome: our tree is a happy unified tree.

Last we add a simple wooden star, painted gold, at the tip of our tree, this star is the decoration my husband and I ever bought, it probably cost us 10 cents. Once the star is up, we make our nativity scene on a table nearby, keeping Jesus hidden, and start our 4-week wait for Jesus’ birth and Christmas treats…

We keep our tree until Epiphany when the Kings come, by that time, we have added candy canes, chocolates and other treats for us to eat as we undo our tree…