O Christmas Tree

My husband's family does big things for Christmas. It is not just a major holiday in my in-laws' house; it is THE holiday. I tend to blow it off a bit, since most of the Christmases I spent with my family were miserable and stressful in one way or another. However, now that we have a child, my husband has put his foot down and basically demanded that we do Christmas, at least in some form, especially since we have our own house now . He wanted to get a huge tree this year, possibly of the U-Cut type. I pointed out that with eight cats and a curious, rambunctious toddler, a gigantic, ornament-laden tree would lead to at best the tree merely being toppled over and its ornaments scattered throughout the house. That was my best-case scenario.

So I convinced him that if he wanted a tree at all, a small one in a pot would be the way to go. And we happened to find such a tree at the plant nursery right up the road from our house. It came pre-potted and was the perfect size to sit on our counter. We got some miniature decorations at The Hellmouth Wal-Mart.

My mom had a tradition where she got each of us kids a new ornament for the tree every year. I have done the same thing with Piper. Last year was easy; some weird pink little "Baby's First Christmas" bell-ornament-thing someone gave us. I thought this year would prove a challenge, because she is so into monsters and I wanted to find her a monster ornament but didn't want it to be licensed characters (i.e. Elmo or Monsters, Inc.) since we're still avoiding those as much as possible.

It turned out to be easy. Piper fell in love with this little cutie as soon as I picked it up in Target:



It even has eyelashes!



Here's the finished tree, with presents underneath: