Rockin Around the Christmas Tree

It is that time of year again!! I love the holidays. When I was growing up in Wisconsin we spent most of our Christmases in Ohio with my extended family. I can still picture and recall the feelings I got as I walked up the sidewalk of Grandma and Grandpa Niekamp's house. The entire outside of the house was always decorated in RED lights. My Grandpa only used red lights to decorate the outside. 25 years ago, they did not even make only red lights so my Grandpa would paint each light bulb red by hand! They had a HUGE pine tree in the front year that he would decorate with the red lights. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I aspire to have my house decorated like that is an homage to my grandfather and the wonderful feelings that those memories bring. Another thing that I took away from Grandma and Grandpa Niekamp was their tree. I LOVED that their tree was decorated with those old school glass ornaments. Since I can remember, I have been slowly but surely collecting glass ornaments for my tree. It is funny because when I started this, I still lived in Wisconsin and was still going to Ohio each year for Christmas. Now that I am so far away from my family, I am so glad that I began that tradition. It brings me closer to family with all of the memories it brings back. When we would enter my grandparents house, the jingle bell on the door would go off and whoever was down the hall in the kitchen would yell, "Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Christmas" without even knowing who it was. They lived in a town where you didn't ring doorbells, you just walked in. My grandmother passed away many years ago. She was such a special and wonderful lady- way before her time. Every time the jingle bell on my door rings, I think of her and miss her and thank God that I have the wonderful family that I do. My hope is that my children will enjoy the holidays like I do and will cherish the many traditions Steve and I have created for them.

One of our traditions is decorating the tree. I get all the ornaments out and carefully unwrap them and lay them out for the kids to decorate the tree. I am so happy that even as David and Megan continue to get older and more mature, they still love to decorate the tree. It is fun to hear them argue over who gets to put the large Santa head on or who got to put on more of the big ornaments.