The Trees of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

The Awesome One and I have been married just over a year, but we already have a solid Christmastime tradition. Partially because we like to be crafty but mostly because I do not like storing "things", we make our own tree ornaments each year--disposable ones that do not require being boxed up and saved come February..erm, I mean...January. ehem.

So, here's a peek at our first three Christmas trees, in chronological order.

Tree #1: Affectionately Titled "The Ugly Tree"

The tree is a gloriously preserved fiber-optic number passed down from a sibling who was hard pressed to part with it. The fibers no longer opt, as it were, but isn't it just... I don't know.

A close-ups of the stained-glass cookies we made, to go with the lindor truffles and candy-canes. We felt they were suitably tacky for such a tree.

Tree #2: Which, for today's purposes, we're calling "The Newlywed Tree"

We splurged and purchased our very own, brand new piece of plastic pine. I'll admit, while it has a bit less character than the last, it is at least symmetrical.

We used left-over wedding invitations and the customized "Jennifer & Jeremy, September 25, 2010" ribbon for some of the decorations.

We made better stained glass cookies this year. We used a blue ring-pop for the "glass" to match the more restrained color theme, and blue-raspberry candy-canes.

Tree #3: As yet unnamed, but maybe "Au Natural" or "The Smelly Tree"

Mr. Awesome was such a champ about stringing those cranberries. And after he finished his strand and picked it up to hang on the tree, he was such a champ about chasing them all over the floor as they fell right off the string.

We dried these orange slices in the oven, and only burned a handful so well done us. To the left there you can see some cinnamon sticks and star anise which we bought at the spice market in Istanbul for this precise purpose. They smell lovely.

The stockings you can see in the background are a pair we purchased in Edinburgh, at a lovely little Christmas shop that seemed made entirely for me.

We do store the tree, which is annoying for me. I realize that buying a real tree each year would eliminate that problem, but I think I'm just being cheap. And I hadn't seen the selection of real trees Whole Foods sells when we purchased this one. I love making the ornaments each year, though. It means we never have the same decorations twice, and we get to be all creative about it each year. I have plenty of other ideas up my sleeve for future trees: Origami, for example, or lolli-pops. And just imagine how many things you can do with pine-cones.