We put the tree up this weekend, mostly because we are feeling holiday nostalgia since at this time last year we were walking into Disneyworld when it was fully decked out in holiday decor. They don’t do anything halfway and I was overwhelmed by the lights, music, trees and general holiday mayhem. What a way for someone to experience Disney for the first time, especially someone who likes Christmas as much as I do.

The holidays have been getting a bad rap for the past few years and I have to tell you, I don’t buy into it. Sure, companies make a ton of money during the holidays, but Christmas is what YOU make it. No one is going to make you buy all that crap you see in the stores, no one can force you to care more about your presents’ price than it’s intent. I think it’s fun to go to the mall and listen to the music and look at the elaborate displays, and I am not going to let the fact that those displays are intended to lure me into shopping ruin the fact that they are fun to look at. I love holidays because everyone gets into it, for their own reasons to be sure, but apathy has trouble finding a home this season. There are so many stories, so many moments during the holidays that make you smile, remember, appreciate who you are with – what can be bad about a season that does all that?

I guess it is about the way I was raised. Christmas dinner is more important to me than the gifts, even though Tia and I were blessed with generous parents and did get a bit spoiled in the gift department. I think if you want to capture the spirit of Christmas and teach your children to appreciate something other than the price tag you have to start inside your family, not outside of it by passing the buck and blaming the corporations. A Christmas full of traditions (the wackier the better) and family gatherings, of spending time with your kids by going skating, or shopping, or just playing in the snow – those are the things that will end the commercialism and bring back a wholesome Christmas. We are really good at blaming others, but for this we need to start in our own backyard.

Anyways, here are some beautiful pictures Adam took of our tree (of course, only one shot of the whole tree, and one of the glass bulb I broke). If you are wondering why it looks shorter this year we had to leave the base off or else it covered the TV and half the room. Once we win the lottery and have a gigantic mansion we can use the whole tree again in all its 8-foot-what-were-we-thinking-buying-a-tree-that-damn-big-in-the-first-place glory.