Oh Christmas Tree!

When all of the other decorations are in place inside, it's time for the tree to come out of the box and the tubs full of ornaments to be unpacked.  This is not a job done hurriedly. It takes time to unwrap all of the memories. 

 Tom snapped this photo as I was sorting out all the fruits and vegetables that are our newest collection.

 And of course we had to include Krampus. 

It's a mix of old and new, handmade or fancy, kid's collections from years ago, cute, quirky, important, or just pretty. 

 Many of the ornaments have stories, of course. 

Under the tree are the Winnie-the-Pooh characters that Tom's mother made for the kids when they were babies. They are precious. 

We had talked about having too many ornaments last year, and considered a second tree, but didn't act on it. As we started to put the ornaments on the tree this year, I mentioned it again, but more specifically. "Let's make a travel tree!"

And so we did. We got the big tree decorated, holding out the box of ornaments we had collected traveling around the US and in Europe. Then we went shopping for a small, table top tree for the living room.

Then I thought "Flags!", so I went shopping at Amazon and found tooth pick state flags and international flags.

 The covered bridge is from Vermont.

 Vicksburg National Military park is in Mississippi, and the pottery angel is from New Mexico. 

 Beep, beep. Roadrunner is from Arizona. 

We haven't sorted out the international flags yet, except Sweden and Norway, which are easy. The crown ornament is from the palace gift shop in Stockholm. And that guy in red is Mozart, from Salzburg, Austria. 

Our new tree is a fun addition to our decorations and another source of wonderful memories. And we have room to add more!