Gymnosperms of Christmas Past

2008, Down one kid, though there was Christmas in February when we went over and visited her. This year was an Aunt Grace Memorial Tree. My Aunt Grace gave us some ornaments over the years for Christmas. After she passed away, her family brought tons of ornaments and other home decorations to a family gathering for who ever wanted them. So we have enough ornaments to decorate a whole tree thanks to Aunt Grace.

2007, Decorated with priceless hand-made one-of-a-kind ornaments that only a parent can love, can you find the Christmas Triangle? How about the Toilet Roll Santa?

2006 – Awfully sparse. Some years we try for a theme, I thought that this was a Gold year, but I see blues and purples. It might just be an Aunt Grace Lite tree.

2005 – Awfully straggly, but at least thar be gifts. Arrr look, there’s an Angel with a tree stuck up her bum.

2004 – No tree of our own. We were going away the day after, on Boxing Day, so decided not to set one up. Santa left us presents anyway.

Here are some of the Christmas trees we saw on our trip. Most places we stayed at had a tree in the lobby or hall, but we neglected to take pictures of those for some reason.

Trafalgar Square tree, it seemed like most of the tree lights we saw on our trip were strung vertically like this one for some reason.Lugano, Switzerland Tree

Milan, Italy Tree, outside the Duomo. We were in Milan for New Years and had dinner out at a local place. They were nice enough to squeeze us in before the diners with reservations showed up. Later that night we were awoken by fireworks. Another Milan tree, this one inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a pricy indoor shopping arcade. It was weird not setting up a tree, though now without the kids around, I’m less excited about decorating the tree and house. I would easily go away around Christmas again, maybe next time we will go prior to Christmas and get to visit some Advent Markets. That I would like, market stalls, Christmas ornaments, handmade crafts, mulled wine, carols, hot holiday snacks. Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Brussels, I don’t care I’d go anywhere.