Give Me Five Monday #2 - Christmas trees

The topic for this week is, "Give Me Five things you like and/or dislike about Christmas trees (putting them up or fond memories, favorite ornaments or tree toppers, etc.)".

Well, we just put ours up and decorated it yesterday, and the likes (and dislikes) are fairly fresh in my mind. So here are my five!

1. Probably my biggest dislike about Christmas trees is the whole process of putting on the lights. This is something that Ron and I have fought about every year that we've been together and had a tree. Not about what kind of lights or anything like that, mind you. No, we fight because I like to have the lights pushed back into the tree branches so they peek out and you don't see the wires. Kind of adding some mystery to it... Ron's way of putting the lights on has usually involved just winding the wires around the tree because he wants to get it done quickly. So every year, he puts the lights on and then gets annoyed with me when I start moving them around or asking him to be more careful. He stomps off and I proceed to completely re-do the lights myself - correctly. ;) But I do have to say that he did an awesome job this year and there was no fighting, no stomping and no re-doing! So much for my argument for getting a pre-lit tree... :)
   
   
2. Another thing I dislike about Christmas trees is the tendency for them to shed needles all over the floor. And I have to say that in my experience, both real and artificial trees are guilty of this one. The number of artificial pine needles that currently need to get vacuumed from my living room floor would testify to that as well. I remember one year in my college apartment when we got a real tree (a very small one!) and the poor thing completely dried up before we took it down. i think it lost 95% of its needles in the doorway as I tried to squeeze it through and it took me hours to pick up all of the darn things out of the carpet.
   
   
3. So ok, enough with the negative! Because there are many more things that I like about Christmas trees than dislike. Really! I love to sit in the living room with only the tree lights on and watch them twinkle and glow through the branches and see the ornaments sparkle. It's just so peaceful and beautiful.
   
   
4. I love seeing my kids' excitement for everything involving the Christmas tree. Putting it up, decorating it, re-decorating it with all of the ornaments that either fall or are knocked off by Becca or the cats... It's so exciting to know that we're making memories that will last them a lifetime, just as my memories of my childhood Christmas trees are still with me today.
   
   
5. I love all of our ornaments. I collect Christmas ornaments so most of ours have a story behind them. There's the ones that I bought on our honeymoon. The ones I've bought on other trips we've taken. The ones that people have given to us as gifts. The ones we've bought for the girls. And one box of very special ones - ornaments that I treasure and don't even always put out on the tree for fear of something happening to them. The shiny glass balls, bells and stars from the Christmases of my youth. And from my mom's youth as well - since the same ones adorned her family's Christmas trees back when she was a child. And someday I hope to pass them down to my girls as well.
   

So what are your 5 likes or dislikes about Christmas trees? Head on over to Becca's Buzz to share yours and check out more!