It's a Christmas tree, thank you very much..

Following Pug's example,here's our tree this year. Mike chopped this baby down and hauled it up our flight of stairs. He picked it out all by himself and I think he did a great job.

I need to find a picture of the type of tree we had in South Africa. I'd never seen such perfect trees before we came here. The trees we had had the longer needles and looked more like pine trees than fir trees.

The tree didn't get decorated until Christmas Eve in our family, which was when we celebrated Christmas. The door to the living room was firmly shut the entire day, and no one could go in. One of our parents, usually my dad, would get us pre-occupied with some activity - perhaps a children's carol service or flying kites with my father and my uncle (don't forget it's summer during Christmas in SA).

On our return we would get all dressed up and then we would anxiously wait for the bell to ring. The bell was a tinkling signal that Father Christmas had come. We would rush down the hall and the door would open... to reveal the most incredible sight. Candles lit on the beautifully decorated tree, choirs singing hymns in the background, and everywhere brightly colored gifts. I can remember the pure magic of that experience. And then the greatest excitement of waking up in the morning to our Christmas stockings dropped off by Father Christmas during the night.

My parents did the greatest job of keeping the magic alive for so long. We don't do this anymore, obviously, but I believe it created a solid base for when we moved here, not having any family around to continue our traditions. We had to create our own new traditions. Christmas Eve has this association for me now - not just of the tree, or the music, or the presents - but of family and a strong reminder of what is really important at Christmas.