O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

   Last night we decorated our Christmas tree, it was a sight to see. Hubby was holding the Little One while sitting on the couch and I was trying to contain the Love Bug from opening all the different boxes of ornaments. It was definitely chaos!

   My mother had a wonderful approach to how we decorated our tree, granted I don't know it this actually worked when we were younger as it's more in my recent memory. She would unpack the ornaments, hand us one at a time and we would place them on the tree, that way she was able to keep her ornament boxes all in order and it wasn't mass chaos for us trying to grab the ones we wanted. This is what I had envisioned our experience to be, but then I remembered (after the fact) that I have a rambunctious 4 year old! So what is one to do when you have certain expectations? You calm them down and explain how it's going to work... that didn't work, he was just to EXCITED, so my next best option, I laid out all the non-breakable ornaments and let him go to town. ;) Here's the final result:

    Not to bad! After the tree was decorated, we took a few pictures and the kids went to bed. Peaceful and loving right? Wait for it...Then came the big debate, hence where my Facebook question came in earlier. My husband said, "Lovely, a TACKY tree!!" :(  I could not believe it!! My response, "Why do you think it's tacky?!" His response, "Colored Lights, I think it looks tacky. I prefer white lights, it reminds me of the candles on traditional Christmas trees." 

   Well lovely, thank you for messing up the good memory I had with my child and calling our efforts tacky! That's all good that you like white lights, maybe tell me that rather than telling me our tree looks tacky! I went on to tell him, that I have no problem with white lights, but the idea of a "traditional, old fashioned" tree needs to be let go. We have children and they need to experience the joy of decorating a tree, that includes home made ornaments, babies first Christmas ornaments, ornaments with pictures, etc. I told him, if it really bothered him that much, we could get a smaller "adult" tree for upstairs. Now don't get me wrong, I love the look of traditional trees, we just are not in that stage of life right now. 

   So now that I've thrown in my two cents, what do you prefer "traditional old fashioned" looking trees or "Family Crafted" trees?