Due Date- Tuesday, December 21: "O' Christmas Tree." Tell us all about your Christmas tree. Real or fake, colored lights or white lights, blinking or steady, tinsel or garland, angel or star on top?... you get the idea. When do you put it up and take it down? Tell us about your ornaments. Tell us about any traditions or rituals you have while trimming your tree. Photos would be great! If you don't celebrate Christmas, we will find an alternate assignment for you so just let me know.

Christmas, 2002, marked the first time in all our lives that we did not had a real Christmas tree. This was a huge deal for us because the annual selecting of the perfect tree is one of our beloved traditions. We have always had beautiful 7-8 foot freshly-cut Noble Firs. Since the "kids" had their own apartments we thought that it was the appropriate time to take the plunge. We found what we think is a wonderful artificial tree. It is 7 1/2 feet tall. It is pre-lit and comes in three sections and the branches are all hinged. If you're interested it's a "Wispy Willow Hinged Tree" with 1,387 tips, 750 clear mini-lights and made by National Tree Company. Here is a closeup of the branches which shows how realistic it looks! The best part is I no longer turn into a scrooge trying to string the lights!

So... Real or fake? A very real looking fake. Colored lights or white lights? White lights. Blinking or steady? Steady. Tinsel or garland? Neither but I am looking for a fancy bow with streamers that hang down. Angel or star on top? Neither- I'm looking for that bow. When do you put it up and take it down? Now that we have an artificial tree, I can put it up December 1st and wait until after New Year's to take it down without worrying that it's become a fire hazard. Tell us about your ornaments. Our ornaments are all little country style ornaments: snowmen, teddy bears, etc. Tell us about any traditions or rituals you have while trimming your tree. We all have special ornaments that have meaning to us. A little grandmother in a rocking chair that represents "Nana" (my mother) to Justin and Jessica. Jeff has a few firemen ornaments, Jessica has some frog ornaments. Since Justin isn't living here, we save some special ornaments for him to hang when he comes. We always play Christmas carols as we trim the tree and light the candles on our Christmas nativity carousel. Here's our tree this year.

And here's a little closeup showing our style of ornaments.

Music by Yuko Ohigashi