{"id":17262,"date":"2010-12-12T20:36:56","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T00:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/?p=17262"},"modified":"2010-12-13T09:00:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T13:00:21","slug":"the-happy-home-at-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/the-happy-home-at-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Happy Home at Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWhen I was a kid we always had a fake tree because my brother had allergies and real ones made him sneeze. It was filled with ornaments that had been given to us or we made in Sunday School. It looked a little Charlie Brown, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n

My best friend had the perfect tree. Her mom was an interior decorator and the tree was filled with coordinating balls and bows. There were no hand-made ornaments on this tree, it was perfect.<\/p>\n

I looked forward to growing up and having my own tree, so I could have a perfect tree too. With coordinating decorations and ribbons streaming from the top, my tree was going to be beautiful.<\/p>\n

And it is…<\/em><\/p>\n

My tree, filled with all its hand-made paper ornaments and hand-me downs is beautiful. Beautiful, because every single decoration on the tree tells a story. The story of my life with the happier husband and our family. It is another chapter in Our Story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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It is a real tree, because we don’t “do” fake trees around here. Christmas season in our house begins with selecting the perfect tree, and we all must agree. This is the first year we have not had the decorated tree fall<\/a>. I consider that a milestone.<\/p>\n

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White lights, because I like white.<\/p>\n

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The ornaments. Each one brings back a memory, a story, as they are hung on the tree. We share laughter and occasional tears as we unwrap each one and hang them on the tree. Before you think we are a sentimental family, the tears are usually from a broken ornament, not memories. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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The anchor my son made for my husband one year.<\/p>\n

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The BIG ball, that does a great job of covering the bare spot on the tree. Because all perfect trees have bare spots.<\/p>\n

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The ballerina my daughter received when she was taking ballet.<\/p>\n

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Scary Santa.<\/p>\n

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One of the few ornaments that remain from our very first Christmas tree. We didn’t have any much money for ornaments, so I made them.<\/p>\n

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And of course, all of the ornaments that decorate the floor around the tree. For 16 years we have had little ones who love to decorate and un-decorate the tree.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead of elaborate decorations we stick with Fisher-price <\/a>\"\"and Playmobil <\/a>\"\"around here. There will come a day when there will be no one to set up the Little People Nativity or open the Playmobil Advent Calendar.<\/p>\n

I know this because I blinked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And this little girl grew up…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m not ready to blink again…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Enjoy your perfect Christmas this year.<\/p>\n

Visit The Nester <\/a> and Kelly<\/a> for more of the Christmas Tour of Homes.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid we always had a fake tree because my brother had allergies and real ones made him sneeze. It was filled with ornaments that had been given to us or we made in Sunday School. It looked a little Charlie Brown, if you know what I mean. My best friend had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-my-home-homemaking","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17262"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17295,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262\/revisions\/17295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}