Oh Christmas Tree!

Earlier this year, when Summer was giving way to Fall, l was suffering with insomnia. Night after night I was wide awake long after I had hoped to be asleep. At first, I was stressing about it, I knew how much work I had to do during the day and being sleepy all day was not part of the plan. After the first few nights I knew I had to switch my thinking, stress is not good for the body and it clearly wasn’t changing the situation.

So I started to think about Christmas. Without question, it’s my favorite time of the year. As a December baby, I feel most like myself in the cold winter months. (Everyone tells me that that doesn’t have anything to do with it, but I don’t care, I think it does. lol)
I began concocting elaborate decorations in my mind, trees decorated like I’ve never seen before using colors I’ve never seen on a tree. To pass the time (and not focus on the fact that I wasn’t sleeping) I dreamed up opulent garlands and wreaths loaded with fruit and flowers, they were amazing!

My insomnia finally passed and right after Halloween I began to see Christmas trees popping up on my instagram feed. Oh no, too soon, I thought! There seemed to be an unspoken contest to be the first to post their tree and decorations. Towards the middle of November, I was hard pressed to find a post that wasn’t Christmas related.

I started to notice, again, the overly styled photos, that looked an awful lot like all the photos before them. It was easy to spot the trends. It was easy because they were everywhere, in nearly every photo.

We got super busy in November, we had our 16th annual bowling tournament for our non profit, finished up a few bits with our kitchen renovation, hosted Thanksgiving and then my niece’s wedding. Before I knew it, it was time to decorate my own home for Christmas.

I confess, that for a moment I began to overthink the decorating of my own home. I feel in a small way that because I talk frequently about decorating and home decor that my tree and my home needs to be “picture perfect” and/or “share worthy”.
Foolishness, I know, but those thoughts ran through my mind.

Then I thought about all the millions of women who follow the trend setters, style makers and influencers who will never post a photo of their Christmas tree (that they love) because they don’t deem it “instagram worthy.”

How very, very sad.

I didn’t go with my opulent decorating plans. Somehow after the intense November that we had, I only wanted calm, traditional and predictable.

So my tree looks exactly like it did last year.

It has no particular color scheme.

It’s faux.

It’s not flocked.

It doesn’t have a fancy ruffle skirt or a trendy box.

It’s not share worthy.

But I love her.

When I see her, I see ornaments that my nieces and nephews made me, ornaments that were gifts from friends, ornaments that I found at estate sales, one ornament that has survived since my childhood and ornaments that I made because there was no money to buy any.

This tree tells a story, our story. And like so many trees in so many homes across America  they will likely not receive any ooohs and aaahs from others but they will do what they were designed to do, bring a few days or weeks of joy to our homes and lives. And that friends, is what decorating should be about.

Maybe next year will be calmer and I can revive my dreams of opulent decor, or maybe not, who knows? What I hope more than anything is that we all have the courage to buck what is expected and pursue what is right for our families in this season. Because that’s what will make the season memorable! I don’t want the 2018 Christmas season to pass in hurry and stress, it’s too important to me.

If you haven’t already, I would LOVE for you to share your tree with our little community on Facebook! Just click here to post a photo of your tree in the comments and tell us why it’s special to you.

Blessings on your home this season,

Catrina