Christmas countdown day 4- stringing up the lights

I always looked forward to decorating the tree, as a young child, because there was something so magical about taking an ordinary looking tree and making it glow. Now that I am adult and creating my own traditions, I often long for the trees of my youth. The ones with tons of garland, glass ornaments, and icicles strewn everywhere. You see, one of our new traditions as a family is that the ornaments going onto our tree are all hand made by either the kiddos or myself. The only exception is the lights, because hubby is a glow-fiend.

I really don't know what happens to our ornaments at the end of each season but it seems like less and less survive. All the hard work that went into painting ceramic ornaments over the past few years are now hidden somewhere in the labrynth that we call a basement. A few have made it though... a candy cane reindeer that Peanut made in Daisy Scouts when she was still home schooled, a cd ornament that Punk made his first year in public school (fourth grade), the foam snowflake ornament that Peanut made especially for me last school year by adding penguins.

Tomorrow, SweetPea and I will be spending our morning making some salt ornaments to hang on the tree. I hope to do a decent amount up and then let all the kiddos paint them on Tuesday. Our little Charlie Brown tree seems so bare right now without all the colorful baubles that I would love to have on there. But at the same time, I know that my heart will sing when I add the ones done by my own children's hands.