Tradition

Every year for Christmas, my mother would buy a new ornament for the Christmas tree. Always Hallmark and always dated with the year. Always. Year after year.

Now that I am older and have a family of my own, I've grown into my mother's tradition. I love it, too. I look forward to the new arrival of ornaments that make their debut in Hallmark stores in July - Yes, summertime is when the Christmas ornaments arrive. This year, my mom and I purchased our 2012 ornaments together. I can't quite remember which one she picked, but mine was ♪♫ Puuurrrrrrrrfect ♫♪♫

I'll show you in just a moment.

Today was the perfect day to start decorating for Christmas. It was, after all, Black Friday! Perfect day to end one holiday and start preparation for the next. (Am I right or am I right?) I sent my hubby out the door at 4:45am to go and snag us a Christmas tree. (Sadly, last year before our move, our basement decided to leak and it ruined so much of our Christmas decorations -- our Christmas tree being one of them. *sigh* The smell of mold is not a pretty smell. I still cannot get it out of our embroidered stockings. *add an even deeper sigh*) So, a Christmas tree was a must-have!

And let me just confirm, that I was not up at 4:45am, but I did tell my husband the night before that he should get to Home Depot when they open at 5am to get this tree. Needless to say, we got the tree! Yay! (such a good hubby!)

And since I work part-time in a retail store, I had to work today, but only four hours. From 10am to 2pm I was busy, busy, busy and after my shift, I came home to see my darling hubby up on the roof putting up the Christmas lights. It almost made me break out in song... "It's the most.... wonderful time... of the year!" ALMOST! haha

The tree was up. The lights were up. and the Thanksgiving day parade was playing on repeat on our dvr.

This evening, after dinner, my daughter asked (repeatedly) if we could decorate the tree tonight. We said yes and even let the kids put the ornaments up. Only one broke, too! Apparently, giving our son the Woody and Buzz Lightyear ornament was not a smart move. He hung it up on the tree, no problem, but then he removed it and tried to make them fly. Well, they crashed and Woody's legs were no longer attached to his body. Whoops! Thank goodness for Super Glue!

And now, back to my Hallmark tradition....  Our 2012 ornament this year is Santa and a fox! Puuurrrrrrrrfect, right?! I thought so, too!

Do you have any special traditions?