This year will be our 8th Christmas spent together as a blended family, and while it certainly isn’t all smooth sailing, Christmas has always been a time that brings us all together. The very first Christmas we spent as a family, we made the decision to create our own Christmas Tree. It is unique, very different in fact I’ve not seen one like it yet, but we love it. We love the tradition we have made around creating our Christmas tree each year.
When asking our kids that first year we were together, how they felt about our first Christmas, words like weird and different were used. We had a drive to create a tree that reflected our new family, without trying to replicate what each family had always done previously. That said, we needed also to have at least some familiarity to bring us together, this we did with the decorations.
Our tree is created each year, using the same timber base, from there we spend an afternoon together gathering sticks and twigs from local bush land, before heading home to create our tree. Once the shape is made, we work as a team, with Christmas carols playing to decorate our wonderful tree.
The decorations are where the magic really begins. These decorations have the power to bring a smile to the face of any surly teenager, as we laugh at the craft we have created in years gone by.
There are always many memories to reflect over. We have special decorations to represent those who are no longer with us and the children take turns to pop these on the tree. This year we were able to add 3 new very special decorations that gave us all the opportunity to reflect on how very privileged we are, and just how easy it is to help others in need.
Oxfam Australia sent* us these new decorations, and when placing them on our unique tree, we wereable to take a few moments to explain to our children how simple it can be to shop ethically even during the festive season and what they meant to other families in less fortunate situations than our own.
Christmas in our family has and continues to be about sharing kindness, gratitude and love. Our crazy, apparently embarrassing to teenage boys, family tree is a great reflection of that.
Do you have an unconventional Christmas Tree? Do you use hand made Christmas decorations? Are you a Christmas crafter?
Nicole xxx
*Oxfam kindly sent us these decorations for editorial consideration as per my disclosure policy.
