Christmas decorations

We have a tradition of putting up our christmas decorations the weekend closest to my birthday ie, about the middle of December. But because of my trip to Holland I'd agreed with the girls that we could do the decorations the day before I left...and these pictures show some of the results.

Like everyone else, we have those big bulk boxes of ornaments for the tree, but since my eldest was born we've had another tradition. Each year I buy a special decoration for each of the girls to put on the tree, or they choose one themselves. Over the years this has meant that a lot of the baubles we use have a special meaning for the children, a little piece of history. For instance, the year that they started riding lessons I bought my youngest a little rocking horse to hang on there. Each decoration has special meaning.

Now, we also have Dutch decorations on there. We have two trees, one in each living room, and both now have several meaningful ornaments that lessa and I bought this weekend. Lessa bought each of the children a little Black Peter (part of Dutch folklore) to hang up, and there are others that I chose. We had a wonderful evening last night, adding the new decorations, talking about how christmas is celebrated in Holland. The girls happily munching on the biscuits and chocolates that were sent to them, me enjoying the wonderful rambol cheese and crackers I brought back. I love the fact that the decorations mean something special.

One decoration that is very special to me was a gift from my darling sister. She bought me a beautiful painted teddy bear as my ornament for the tree, in honour of my youngest calling DragonM Sir her 'cuddly teddy bear'. She said, 'there you go Clare, now you have your own Dragon M to hang on the tree!' Gotta love that sis *grins. So DragonM Sir is now hanging on my main tree - the one in the top pic - next to the armchair where I always sit. I'm sure he's keeping an eye on me !! Lol.

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