CHRISTMAS TREE 2021

As promised yesterday, here is the tree and its decorations.  This tree was another "freebie" from downstairs.  In this case there was a note on it, "free take me, only 316 days until Christmas".  It's a 9' tall pre-lit "just cut evergreen" with 700 lights.

We put this large wire woven star on the the top...

...and our favorite tree skirt, a furry "Santa" style at the bottom for the presents.  

Here it is with some of our ornaments on it.  The neat thing about this tree is that you turn it on and it is all white lights like this...

...and when you push the button again, they all change to multicolored lights!  Some nights we leave it white, other nights we change to the colors, depending on what we're in the mood for.

We only used a couple of our ornament storage boxes. It's not all of them but it was enough on this tree.  With it being in the corner, the entire backside is empty because no one will ever see that.

If you enlarge the photos above you can see the ornaments but here are few ornaments we took up close pictures of with some backstories.

Here's one of our earliest ornaments.  It's a Y2K (remember that? ha) millennium ornament, a champagne bottle on ice with the year 2000 listed.

I have a love of dolphins and so we have several of those on the tree...

We have the Kremlin in Russia and still in storage, a great pyramid and the Taj Mahal.  They are so sparkly and very colorful.

There are astronauts...

and robots...

and aliens in flying saucers!

There is Santa in his sleigh on a rooftop...

and the Titanic sinking in 1912.

The first Christmas after 9/11 we got this "Santa fireman" and "Snowman policeman" to honor the first responders from that day.

This is an Uncle Sam Santa with a Statue of Liberty 'charm' attached.

We have cute snowmen...

And traditional Santas...

Even a teddy bear or two.  

We have a tradition to exchange ornaments every year and that's where we got most of them but some have extra special meaning...

Like this little guy!  A well dressed pig purchased for the farm by a dear friend who knew exactly what to get...

We also have the traditional pickle that gets hidden somewhere in the tree.  This was given to us by another friend who has since passed away...

Look at this one!  A red barn with a green tractor beside it!  We got this one when we first purchased the farm.  It was too cute to pass up...

These two are very special.  We keep them up near the top because they represent our kitties that have crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  One is a black and white cat to remember Sydney and the other is a striped cat to remember Brisbane.

Then at the very top is this pink poodle.  My Mom had gotten an old school silver aluminum tree and she was going to decorate it with ornaments that were a 50's retro style.  We got her this pink poodle because, well, 1950's, ha.  She didn't get to put it up but we put it at the top of the tree for her.  And yes, we still have the aluminum tree.  It will definitely make an appearance one of these Christmases.

Merry Christmas Eve!