7 Trees, 13 Wreaths, 3 Creches

Seven trees? 13 wreaths? 3 creches?

Okay, I get it. Not everyone needs to do Christmas This Big.

And that’s 100% right.

But let me tell you why I do it that way.

First, it’s just plain fun.

Second, we tend to do things big here – and the Herrnation isn’t even in Texas. Four Kids. Four Dogs. Why Not Seven Trees?

But, third, there’s a backstory.

When I was growing up Christmas was the only big holiday celebration that my mother did.

Not in a celebration of the birth of the Savior kind of way, but in a pagan winter solstice kind of way – a lot of emphasis on the trees and presents, no religious overtones.

My mother was an artist. My grandmother was an interior designer. The aesthetic was everything.

So my mother had two identical trees that were placed in the living room because she liked the symmetry. We had only white lights.

High marks for presentation. Low marks for joy. Even lower marks for fun.

When I was a little girl we had a mix of ornaments, including the Shiny Brite ornaments that everyone who grew up in the 1950s and 60s had on their trees.

Taking them out of the boxes and decorating was a ritual.

Everything was carefully stored in flat cardboard dress boxes with crumpled tissue paper that was reused year after year and each ornament had to be carefully placed on the tree in a very specific order.

Plain glass bulbs first, fancies next and then other ornaments, fake song birds made with real feathers etc. last. Woe betide any little hands that dropped something.

As I got older my mother started to collect animal ornaments and then the trees were only the animals with a few miniature glass balls to add a little glitter.

All of the presents were wrapped in themed paper and ribbons and put out under the tree early as part of the decorations. This was definitely the Christmas of a family with only one child!

It was beautiful. It would have made a great Christmas magazine shoot.

It wasn’t what I wanted for my Christmas.

My first tree of my own was the first Christmas I celebrated with Mr. Herr. We had a bit of a set-to about the lights. Remember, I’m a white-lights-only girl. He came from a colored lights family.

What’did we do? We negotiated and then compromised: both.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of our marriage. We negotiate. My brother-in-law once asked, “Do you guys negotiate over everything?”

Yes. Sometimes like fishwives. With that settled, we went big: we started having both. Spoiler alert: that’s one of the ways Christmas got big for us.

Then, of course, there was the whole timing thing about the tree. Mr. Herr’s family would buy their trees on Christmas Eve, when the prices fell (they weren’t cheap, they were poor and every dollar counted).

My family bought the tree right after Thanksgiving. I don’t remember what I gave up to Mr. Herr in exchange for December 1 tree acquisition rights, but I’m sure it’s covered by the Treaty of Lambertville.

On that first tree, I had the Shiny Brite ornaments that my mother didn’t use anymore and we bought some other things together which are mostly lost, but we still have these. which I now use on my dining room chandelier.

Over the years, as the family’s size grew, so did the decorating. Double lights was like a gateway drug to Big Christmas. And so we went big.

Our own ornaments typically reflect something connected to the family like a team the kids played on, a team we root for, a school one of us went to, or a place we’ve been. Or our dogs. We have a few Lab ornaments. Maybe more than a few.

We also have ornaments I’ve needlepointed, including jerseys for the teams our children played on.

So, you’re sitting there and saying, “Well, One Informed Housewife, that’s nice, but seven trees?”

We didn’t add a second tree until our oldest child was about two. My grandmother gave us an Advent Calendar that was 24 books which told the story of the Nativity and were also ornaments. Christmas in our house isn’t a pagan celebration, it is the joyful season of Christ’s birth.

I bought a small tree which was in her room and later in the hallway between our children’s bedrooms and we would read one book each night and then hang it on the tree. Those of you from big families will not be surprised to learn we had an elaborate set of rules to ensure even hanging rights (when you go man-down in families, you start inventing a rule book for everything, without which anarchy ensues).

This is that tree, with the original Advent Calendar. Years later, as our oldest was graduating from college, I discovered that this Advent Calendar was still in print. I bought four more and as each child graduated gave them their own along with a small artificial tree.

Somewhere along the way, my grandmother gave me the ornaments that had been my grandfather’s when he was a little boy. When our children were little, I stopped using them because they were so delicate and I was afraid that small hands or large Labrador tails would turn them to dust.

They have since re-emerged, safely ALTH – Above Lab Tail Height.

Now here’s an issue that can divide families faster than fighting over the inheritance: real trees only? Artificial, only?

By now, you’re probably unsurprised to know that we do both.

Why? Why not?

More trees equals more fun, more Christmas joy.

Then, a few years ago I got these two artificial trees

And I use them for these special ornaments.

Ok we’re up to four, you’re saying to yourself why would this woman want more?

I’ll tell you why and it goes back to when I was a little girl.

I was always fascinated by pink trees. My mother, the artist? Well, no. She thought they were tacky.

Nevertheless, I always wanted one and I raised the subject with Mr. Herr, usually an old school traditionalist if there was ever one.

But he's also a man with few boundaries where having a little ironic fun is concerned, so he agreed. And, here it is my pink tree in my kitchen being guarded by the Pink Christmas Tree Honor Guard.

Really, who doesn’t want a pink tree?

Once the fake tree floodgates were opened, there was no stopping us. This one is in Mr. Herr’s office.

It has the tinsel garland that he grew up with and I think is a little too much. Old school, what can I tell you, and helps explain his willingness on the pink tree.

Finally, this one on our deck. It’s real and, if I do say so myself, it’s spectacular:

Until a few months ago, there was an older fellow who sat behind us in church. We got to know him reasonably well over the years and he’d tell us that one of the things he liked doing was driving past the house to look at the deck tree and decorations.

When he went to Glory this year at age 96, his son told us Christmas was huge for his dad and our outside tree brought him joy.

As I put up the tree this year, I thought, “This one’s for you, Alex. Merry Christmas.”

I told you Mr. Herr has few limits, but there is one and in our case, it’s the ceiling in our living room. Now we skip the annual argument about whether the main tree is too short because he has grudgingly – very grudgingly – accepted the limits of physics and ceilings.

As you might imagine, getting ready for Christmas here is a production, and in years like this, with a late Thanksgiving, it’s a little stressful.

Harvard Medical School says the holiday season is stressful because it requires us to keep track of and pay attention to a greater number of responsibilities than usual, the brain’s prefrontal cortex goes into overdrive. Over time, a high level of demand can decrease memory, halt production of new brain cells, and cause existing brain cells to die.

Very heavy stuff. Any Mom can tell you it’s stressful because there are so many balls in the air – many of them glass ornaments – that you have to land in the right places.

It doesn’t have to be. It shouldn’t be.

So here’s One Well Informed Housewife's thoughts about how to make sure those balls end up on the tree instead of broken beneath it.

First, remember, this is supposed to be fun. It is a season of joy, whether you’re a person of faith or a person of It’s a Wonderful Life (Herrnation's favorite Christmas movie? Tie between Denis Leary in The Ref and Die Hard).

Second, if you need to, get organized.

We used to try to wrap the kids’ gifts on Christmas Eve after we’d gotten back from church and they'd gone to bed. We’d collapse into our own about 4 AM, all measures of Christmas cheer long gone, with a son who was about to wake up in two hours wanting to open presents NOW! (We solved for that one: “You can empty your stocking, but you have to wait for the rest of us to get up –later!”).

Now we wrap as we go.

Third, understand that the more intricate you make things, the more you need to make time for those things to happen. If you want personalized Christmas cards, you need to order them in enough time to get them, address them, stamp them, and mail them. Handwriting addresses takes longer than you think.

If you’re pointing, clicking, and shipping to buy your Christmas presents online, ditto.

When the kids were small and playing on travel teams and I hadn't worked out the schedule, that was stressful. Did I mention those wrapping sessions?

In those days I was just trying to get one tree (well maybe two) up, and a couple of wreaths on the doors, in between driving to games and practices.

Over time, I realized I needed to be organized if I wanted to do more. I even convinced the Count of Chaos, Mr. Herr, that his style of “help,” needed to raise its game and well, be helpful.

Most important: don’t be fooled by our Christmas Bigness. More can be less. We were just as happy with one tree as we are now with the Christmas forest.

The most important thing about Christmas is being with people you love and seizing the fun and the joy – even if you’ve been up until four in the morning wrapping presents.

So that’s how I’ve gone from one tree to seven. We’ll leave the wreaths and creches for another post.

Merry Christmas!